Stewarding America’s Antiquities at Mesa Verde

Stewarding America’s Antiquities at Mesa Verde

•Problem: impacts to historical/cultural resources; depreciative behavior

•Management Strategies: limit use; reducing the impact of use; hardening the resource

•Management Practices: rules and regulations; facility development/site design/maintenance; law enforcement; rationing/allocation; zoning; information/ education

•Mesa Verde National Park•Ancestral Puebloan people•550 to 1300 A.D.•“Green table”•1906 (Teddy Roosevelt)•Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason•First U.S. cultural park•Over 4,000 archeological sites (600 cliff dwellings)

•Over 600,000 visitor per year

Stewarding America’s Antiquities at Mesa Verde

•Visitors may not enter cliff dwellings without the presence of a uniformed ranger

•Most of the park’s cultural resources are closed to the public

•Ticketed tours for Cliff Palace and Balcony House during peak season

•Heavy emphasis on interpretation•Freeman Tilden: “through knowledge,

understanding; through understanding, appreciation; through appreciation, protection.”

Stewarding America’s Antiquities at Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde National Park

•Virtual tour of Mesa Verde National Park (3:49)

•Preservation of Archeological Sites

Stewarding America’s Antiquities at Mesa Verde