Archaeology as Built for the Tourists: The Anasazi Cliff Dwellings of Manitou Springs, Colorado Troy R. Lovata Published online: 19 April 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 Abstract Anasazi-era archaeology sites have been extremely popular tourist attractions since the 1890s, but one site���the cliff dwellings in Manitou Springs, Colorado���stands apart because it is a fake. The site was constructed at the turn of the twentieth century as a more accessible tourist alternative to Four Corners-area Anasazi ruins. The story of its construction and how it continues to cater to its visitors offers insight into the ways in which archaeology sites function as tourist destination. The Manitou Cliff Dwellings forces scholars to consider questions of authenticity, authority, and how people engage the past. Keywords Anasazi . Tourism . Colorado . Authenticity Introduction Over 30 years ago Dean MacCannell (1976, p. 4) urged scholars to ���follow the tourists��� so that they may better understand themselves. He laid the groundwork for the systematic study of tourism and various social scientists responded to his call. They have since used tourism to consider how cultures operate, how cultures change, and why people interact in the ways they do. Curious archaeologists are no scholarly exception and many have taken a direct interest in tourists and the material impacts of tourism. Organizations like the Society for Commercial Archaeology have focused on preserving the material culture of travel, including historic motels, roadside diners, and scenic byways (Glaser 2006 Rothwell 2000 Torbeck 2004). Individual archaeologists have prescriptively explored���in order to raise the public���s awareness of the past, to foster preservation, and to train interpreters���tourism as part of the wider heritage industry (Little 2004, pp. 269���270). Others have even begun to theorize about archaeology and tourism apart from preservation (Rowan Int J Histor Archaeol (2011) 15:194���205 DOI 10.1007/s10761-011-0136-z T. R. Lovata (*) University Honors Program, University of New Mexico, MSC06 3890, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA e-mail: lovata@unm.edu

2004, p. 250). But the relationship between scholars and tourists has never been one- directional. Past peoples, the practice of archaeology, and the material culture that archaeologists uncover have long conjured fascination outside academia (Holtorf 2005, p. 1 Lovata 2004, pp. 120���122). Tourists have a history of seeking out the remnants and remains of both their own and other people���s pasts. Tourists turned their attentions to archaeology long before archaeologists sought to codify tourist���s actions into theory. In fact, tourists have had such strong affections for past cultures that people have repeatedly recreated, reconstructed and even faked archaeology sites and archaeological finds in order to peak tourist���s desires and sate tourist���s demands (many examples can be found in Feder 2002 Lovata 2007 Rowan 2004 Williams 1991). The cliff dwellings at Manitou Springs, Colorado, are an archaeology site built specifically for tourists. The story of their construction and how they continue to cater to visitors���many who know little of their suspect authenticity���offers insight into how people engage with the past and how an archaeology site functions as a tourist destination. The Manitou Cliff Dwellings are the product of nineteenth- and twentieth-century processes that promoted an ideal of prehistoric culture, encouraged heritage tourism as economic development, and connected Southwestern archaeology to a specifically American sense of identity. Their continuing prominence is predicated on offering visitors an interactive and unambiguous experience with the past. The Appeal of the Anasazi The Manitou Cliff Dwellings appear to be Anasazi���a definition archaeologists base on attributes that include black on white pottery, stone apartment blocks, distinctive petroglyphs, corn-centered agriculture, and a conservative religious structure that permeated prehistoric communities across the American Southwest in the first and second millenniums C.E. Yet the Manitou Cliff Dwellings are not an Anasazi site. The site is fake. Nevertheless, the Anasazi mystique explains much about the site���s existence and function. The site was conceived to match a growing interest in Southwestern prehistory. It proved popular and persists, in part, because of the idea of the Anasazi is so attractive. The cliff dwellings outside Manitou Springs appear to be the ruins of an ancient Anasazi group that once lived along Colorado���s Front Range Mountains. Their remains are compact, but they clearly resemble the imposing sprawl of well-known Anasazi sites���and National Parks and Monuments���like Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. The Manitou Cliff Dwellings are tucked under a natural rock overhang in the aptly named Phantom Cliff Canyon (Fig. 1). A number of wooden ladders and balconies connect diminutive rectangular and t-shaped doors and windows, which open into a series of multi-story rooms. Stone block and mud plaster construction are readily visible and clearly resemble techniques used at Mesa Verde and Chaco. One room deep under the cliff appears to be, and is labeled as, a small kiva���the subterranean, circular room with a sacred hearth and sipapu that functioned as the religious center of many Anasazi settlements. The cliff dwellings are a full blown cultural attraction and the adjacent area has been developed into a fully functional museum. The Manitou Cliff Dwellings Int J Histor Archaeol (2011) 15:194���205 195 195