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Article: Mesa Verde National Park offers tours of cliff-dwelling settlements.(Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service)
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- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- June 30, 2003
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Luaine Lee
MESA VERDE, Colo. _ You don't have to dredge up Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler if you're in the mood for a good mystery. You can find what you're looking for in America's Southwest, tucked into the cavernous alcoves of water-eroded sandstone cliffs.
The Anasazi were an ancient people who built a complex of impenetrable apartments in the cliffs of Mesa Verde. Around 1300 AD they left. No one is sure where they went or why.
The word Anasazi is no longer politically correct; it's a Navajo word sometimes translated as "ancient enemies." Today those cliff dwellers are called the Ancestral Puebloans, and many modern tribes ...