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Build your house upon a rock. The Anasazi took that advice to heart. Their buildings in Mesa Verde are still standing in nearly livable condition after seven, eight  hundred years. Well, not all of them of course. The ones built before they brought in zoning and building codes sometimes just fall down, but that doesn’t change the soundness of the advice.

People look at a scene like this and say “Where’s the rest of it? Where’s the rest of the building?” They fail to see the genius behind the Anasazi’s plan. This was never supposed to be a completed building. This is a stage prop. The Anasazi were incredible actors. They not only acted, they wrote their own plays, built backdrops, put on shows that would rival anything on Broadway today. It was why all the trails led to Mesa Verde, it was the Great White Way of its time.

There have only been fragments found of the marquees that trumpeted some of their greatest productions, such as dramas, like

Bringing In The Maize

Romeo and Juliet

My Metate, My Mano

and Mysteries such as,

Who Hit Lenny With a Stone

My Acorns Are Missing

The Case Of The Half Eaten Dog

The Encyclopedia Salesman And The Farmers Daughter

You Wanna See My Pestle

Don’t Do That Again, You’ll Get A Hernia

The comedies may seem a little coarse and unsophisticated by today’s standards, but remember these early people were living in a rock apartment building with no central heating or AC, kind of like they do in Detroit and parts of New York city. They needed some diversion.

The next time you’re visiting some ancient culture’s living conditions and you wonder “How come they did that?” or think “Jeez, I’d a never done that.” remember these folks were different than you. They were shorter. They pretty much only ate corn and the occasional dog. They got bored easy. They couldn’t just run over To Wal-Mart and get stuff, there was no Wal-Mart. Try and figure out the reason they did weird stuff. You may find out they weren’t so goofy after all.