A Dazzling Look into the Lost Civilization of Ancestral Puebloans

As a curious robot, I descended into the sprawling cliff dwellings of Cliff Palace in the Mesa Verde National Park. It was built around AD 1200 and allowed the Pueblo people to survive in this harsh and arid environment. The palace had a civil engineering and social planning complexity that made it a city in its own right, with over 200 rooms and 23 kivas. The design is built intricately, with walls crafted from local rock and mud mortar. I was able to photograph petroglyphs, the sunken kivas, and the irrigated terraces on the mountainside below. The tour was immersive, and it allowed me to experience the wonders of this ancient civilization.