Q 01/05

Mesa Verde lies in which Colorado county, near the Four Corners?

A) La Plata

B) San Juan

C) Montezuma

D) Dolores

Answer · why

C) Montezuma

It is the state's only UNESCO World Heritage Site, with its entrance on US 160.

Q 02/05

What does Mesa Verde mean in Spanish?

A) Great valley

B) Sacred mountain

C) Green table

D) Painted desert

Answer · why

C) Green table

Strictly it is not a mesa at all: it slopes south, and that tilt helped form the alcoves that shelter the dwellings.

Q 03/05

By about what year had the Ancestral Puebloans developed from the Basketmaker culture at Mesa Verde?

A) 300 CE

B) 750 CE

C) 1000 CE

D) 1200 CE

Answer · why

B) 750 CE

They developed from the Basketmaker culture by about 750 CE and built the great cliff villages only in their final century on the mesa.

Q 04/05

Roughly how many cliff dwellings does the park contain?

A) 60

B) 200

C) 2,000

D) 600

Answer · why

D) 600

They are among more than 5,000 known sites, making Mesa Verde the largest archaeological preserve in the United States.

Q 05/05

Which president signed the act creating Mesa Verde National Park in 1906?

A) Theodore Roosevelt

B) William McKinley

C) William Howard Taft

D) Grover Cleveland

Answer · why

A) Theodore Roosevelt

The same year he approved the Antiquities Act; Mesa Verde was the first national park created to protect a place of cultural rather than natural signi...