Pre-Historic Mesa Verde Reservoirs

The ancestral Puebloans of Mesa Verde, people we sometimes refer to as the Anasazi, were able to plan, build, and operate public works projects in southwestern Colorado more than 1,000 years ago. The evidence they left behind has provided ample proof of their civil engineering achievements that spanned hundreds of years. This field evidence rests in canyon bottoms and on mesa tops of Mesa Verde National Park, archaeological sites that were reservoirs for storage of domestic-use water (Figure 1). Four of these reservoirs were explored, analyzed, and documented between 1995 and 2003. In 2004, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) designated all four as National Historic Civil Engineering Legacy sites. 12 pp., 3 tables, 3 figures, 23 references.