Incredible remains of a beautiful ancient Native American village carved into a cliff

The Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, is part of a larger network of stone dwellings that the Pueblo ingeniously created built in the 12th century

The cliff houses were lost until the late 19th century when people began looting their artifacts (

Image: Getty Images/RooM RF)

Mesa Verde, which translates to "green table" in Spanish, is the largest archaeological reserve in the United States.

The ancient sites inside Colorado's 22,000 hectare national park were home to Pueblos, Native Americans from the southwestern United States who, in the 13th century, carved entire villages out of the sides of cliffs.< /p>

They left no written records, but archaeological remains and oral accounts passed down over the centuries have allowed research to reconstruct their lives at the time.

Sometime in the late 1190s, the Anasazi people, a Navajo word for those who lived in the Mesa Verde area, transitioned from living atop the cliffs at the base of them to inside the deep natural alcoves.

Pueblos are American Indians of the southwestern United States (

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Getty Images/Room RF)

In 2011, the region experienced cold and snowy winters which led to long periods of drought during the summer period.

However, the harsh environment was met with "resilience" by people.

The dwellings they built ranged from one-room granaries, which made up about three-quarters of the buildings on the site, to entire villages spanning 150 different rooms.