The early basket makers did not live in Mesa Verde, but their ancestors actually did.

Some basket makers moved to Mesa Verde.  They made pit houses which were simply pits in the ground with a hole in the roof for smoke.  These were their first permanent homes.  Another important thing was pottery which made it easier to cook.

Instead of pit houses their homes were square rooms with vertical walls called "pueblos," Spanish for "village."  Pueblos (at least the first) were made of wooden poles and sun dried mud and an underground room called a kiva.

Now the buildings were all joined together with storage, social and sleeping rooms.  During the last period of Mesa Verde, the Anasazi peoples started building towers, which could have been used to send signals or to watch for enemies.

Around A.D. 1175, the people of Mesa Verde began moving again. Now they lived inside the cliffs.  The cliffs' overhang protected the Anasazi villages from bad weather and many today are well preserved.