From 1959 to 1963, the National Park Service, with generous
support from the National Geographic Society, made a
comprehensive study of the archeology and ecology of Wetherill
Mesa, in Mesa Verde National Park. Wetherill Mesa is being
developed so that increasing numbers of visitors will be able to
observe the evolution of a prehistoric Indian culture over some
700 years, both here and in the nearby and more familiar section
of the park known as Chapin Mesa. This is the second monograph
of the Wetherill Mesa Project. The report not only provides
substantive data on environmental variations at Mesa Verde and
their bearing on the prehistoric settlement pattern and land use
of the area, but also demonstrates the critical importance of
such research to a fuller understanding of human ecology of the
past elsewhere. James A. Erdman, now with the U.S. Geological
Survey, Denver, and Charles L. Douglas, now on the staff of the
Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas, Austin, came to the
Wetherill Mesa Project from