Volume 3: Mesa Verde/ Aztec Ruins

According to the U.S. National Park Service, Mesa Verde National Park features 5,000 known archeological sites, including 600 spectacular cliff dwellings. The name is Spanish for “Green Table,” and the area was inhabited by the Ancestral Pueblo people from AD 600 to 1300, over 700 years. (source) Mesa Verde, as well as nearby Aztec Ruins National Monument located in Aztec, New Mexico, are an important link to the Native American past of the region and provide significant economic stimulus, with well over half a million people visiting each year. (source)