t and animal foods to nourish and sustain themselves. Life was precarious at best, a kind of hand-to-mouth existence. When food sources played out because of excessive consumption, drought, or increased population, the family groups moved to another area in the region. Farming eventually had to replace hunting-and-gathering as the main source of food. The Anasazi of this era lived in pit houses clustered in small villages. Villages were often built on mesa tops (Wenger, 1980).
Occasionally, these early villages were located under cliff overhangs. By 1000 A.D., the people of Mesa Verde had advanced their methods of building. There was a steady progression from less substantial structures such as those made of adobe to homes built of stone and masonry. Homes with walls of thick stone often rose two or even three stories high. Christina Clarke (2000) writes in American Heritage that the houses were joined together to form compact clusters around open courtyeards. In these common courtyards the Anasazi dug pits. These pits grew deeper and eventually developed into ceremonial rooms we now refer to as kivas. Kiva is actually a word in the Hopi Indian language. The kiva were sites of religious significance. Archelologists speculate that each clan or extended family eventually built its own kiva.
The period from approximately 1100 to 1300 was the high point in the life in the Anasazi community. The total population in the Mesa Verde region reached several thousand people. This populat
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