Episode 5: Storytelling

The peoples of the Mesa Verde region and their descendants have found meaning and guidance in the stars for thousands of years. Storytelling is a big part of the descendants’ lives still today. The stars, moon, and sun are key elements of those stories, and their movement through the sky determine when certain stories are told throughout the year.

Episode 4: Star Watching

There are as many names for the stars, planets, and constellations as there are languages and cultures on Earth. In this episode, we hear some of the Navajo/Diné and Zuni names for some of the most prominent stars and constellations.

And we hear about the 1054 Supernova that resulted in the Crab Nebula which can still be seen via telescope today.

Episode 3: Moon Watching

Our Moon has a consistent and predictable cycle that repeats every month in the same way that it has for billions of years! But this cycle is more than the 29.5-day pattern of lunar phases. In this episode, we’ll hear about the ways humans have tracked the monthly lunar cycle, as well as the lunar standstill, and the significance that eclipses have for descendants of the Mesa Verde region today.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode includes discussion of Native American Residential Schools (also known as American Indian Boarding Schools). This content may not be suitable for all individuals. This section of the episode begins around 17:00 and ends around 19:00 if you wish to skip it.

Episode 1: The 100th Dark Sky Park

In 2021, Mesa Verde National Park became the 100th International Dark Sky Park. This designation does more than just preserve the natural beauty of the night sky above the park, it also preserves the cultural bond that ancestral people had with the skyscape.

In season 5, we'll hear about the ways that ancient people observed and tracked the movement of the sun, the moon, and the stars, as well as how these traditions live on in their descendants still today.

Episode 2: Sun Watching

Some of the most well known celestial alignments within ancestral sites correspond with the annual movement of the sun along the horizon throughout the year - especially on the Solstices and Equinoxes. And one of the most famous is the Sun Dagger at Chaco Canyon.

In this episode, we hear from Zuni descendants of Mesa Verde about their ongoing connection to sacred spaces used to track the movement of the sun.

Episode 5: Where Did They Go?

In this final episode of season four, we look into the myth that first drew explorers, archaeologists, and tourists to these desert canyons just a few centuries ago. Where did the Mesa Verde people go? Why did they move on? And why is this myth that they vanished from their ancestral homelands damaging to descendant communities today?

Episode 4: What is Rock Art?

The rock art in the Southwest is as iconic to the region as the cliff dwellings themselves. From animal shapes to handprints to intricate spirals, these petroglyphs and pictographs adorn the landscape, leaving messages from hundreds and thousands of years in the past. What do these symbols mean? And what might they still communicate today?

Episode 3: Why Move into the Cliffs?

Why did the Ancestral Pueblo people build these world renowned alcove villages? It’s nearly impossible to go a day at Mesa Verde National Park without hearing someone ask some version of this question, whether aloud or whispered to themselves at an overlook. And at the same time, it’s nearly impossible to answer it. In this episode we explore some of the many theories surrounding this frequently asked question.

Episode 2: The Largest Villages

The stunning alcove villages - such as Cliff Palace - are what originally captured the attention of the first European descendant folks to move through the canyons of Mesa Verde. However, these were not the largest communities in the Mesa Verde region… not by a long shot.

Episode 1: The First Migrations

In season 4, we’re digging into some of the most commonly asked questions at Mesa Verde National Park. In this episode, we're talking about how the Ancestral Pueblo people came to be in the Southwest, and how Indigenous and European ways of learning and knowing about the past can complement each other.

Episode 7: The Trade of Textiles

Hundreds of years ago, the Ancestral Pueblo people were pouring immense time and energy into weaving intricate items, such as clothing and sandals. And while people all across the region seem to have utilized these items, recent studies suggest that a particular group may have been responsible for most of the manufacturing.

This specialization has been part of the fabric of society for Hopi, Pueblo, and Zuni people for thousands of years.

Episode 6: The Trade of Color Part III: Turquoise

All across the region in the mid-1100s people began to move closer to water, to each other, and - as we see at Mesa Verde - some began to move into the cliffs. These movements to water are also reflected in the need to travel great distances, to make strong bonds with different cultures, and to bring home special items – feathers, shells, turquoise, with their bright, vibrant colors, their origins near oceans and rainforests, and their tinkling sounds of rain.

Episode 5: The Trade of Color Part II: Feathers

For thousands of years, an extensive trade network has bonded the people of Mesoamerica and what is currently the Southwestern United States. Pochtecas - Mesoamerican traders - were responsible for transporting goods and technologies across the landscape, including live birds and their colorful feathers.

Episode 4: The Trade of Color Part I: Shells

Water has always been precious to the Ancestral Pueblo people, and it is still precious to their descendants today. As dry farmers in an arid region, prayers for moisture and rains have been passed down for thousands of years and often incorporate items that were acquired from faraway places associated with water.

Episode 3: The Trade of Pottery

Pottery is a particularly iconic item in the Southwest, and evidence of its trade across the Four Corners region can be a little surprising… considering moving something fragile and heavy like ceramics would be difficult without carts, wagons, or draft animals.

Episode 2: The Trade of Cacao

What do three pieces of 1000-year-old pottery from the desert of Chaco Canyon have in common with the rainforests of Mexico?

Episode 1: Trade

In season 3, we’re talking all about trade relationships as distant as Mesoamerica and the California coast, and as close-knit as neighboring communities across Montezuma Valley.

Episode 2: Two-Spirits

Two Spirit people have been part of Indigenous culture since the beginning.

Episode 1: Art in the Park

Artist-in-Residence Rosie Carter talks about her two weeks living and creating in Mesa Verde National Park.

Episode 5: Esther

From the 1940s until the 1970s, one of the most well-known exhibits in Mesa Verde's museum contained a human body - the mummified remains of a young woman known as Esther.

Episode 4: Ancient Corn, Modern Questions

Corn or "maize" has been a significant part of life for the Hopi and Pueblo people for ... well, for as long as any of them can remember.

Episode 3: Loving the Past to Death

Cally visits Ballroom Cave, a site impacted by hikers and in need of restoration in an archaeologically rich part of southeast Utah.

Episode 2: What’s an Anasazi?

There isn't a tribe in the Southwest today called the Anasazi -- and there never was.

Episode 2: Preservation Paradox

What should be done when the ancient sites in the Southwest are in danger of collapse? Anything?

Episode 3: Moving On

Why did people leave the Mesa Verde region? It wasn't just the drought.

Episode 2: Corn = Life

Using experimental gardens and historic climate data, archaeologists are able to predict the size of past corn harvests, providing new insights into how big droughts affected ancient people's food security.

Episode 1: Revealed by Fire

Wildfires present both threats and opportunities to archaeological research.