Photo of Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park

"Photo of Cliff Palace Puebloan Cliff Dwellings"

Cliff Palace is the largest example of Puebloan Cliff Dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park

The first person to seriously document these sites was the Finn: Gustaf Nordenskiöld

In the late 19th century, there were no laws against treasure-hunting or selling artifacts in Colorado; in addition to the ever-present threat of vandalism and looting, scholars and tourists alike had the habit of taking valuable items from Mesa Verde as trophies. In this climate, Nordenskiöld loaded Mesa Verde artifacts into Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad boxcars in Durango, Colorado,and headed for Europe, with most of the items eventually ending up at the National Museum of Finland.

Nordenskiöld biographers Judith Reynolds and David Reynolds describe the ensuing situation as an "international incident."Angry locals charged Nordenskiöld with "devastating the ruins" and had him arrested at midnight at the Strater Hotel even though there were no laws at the time supporting such a charge.In addition Xenophobia may have played a role in Nordenskiöld's arrest. In the December 9, 2005, Denver Post article, Electra Draper wrote: "...residents of Durango were beginning to think foreigners shouldn't be removing local artifacts. No intervention was taken against Americans who were also looting the sites.

When Nordenski was arrested on 17 September 1891 he sent this telegram to his father: "much trouble some expense no danger" (original omits capitalization). source: Letter No. 31, The Letters of Gustaf Nordenskiöld Mesa Verde 1991.

In the end, Nordenskiöld took more than 150 photographs of Mesa Verde, logged multiple sites, published a popular travel book from the American West in 1892, and in 1893 published one of the first books about Mesa Verde, The Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde, Southwestern Colorado: Their Pottery and Implements, a monumental report of his excavations, describing in detail the buildings, pottery, skeletal remains, and tools found at the sites.

After his return from America, Nordenskiöld occupied himself with mineralogical studies, but his health started to deteriorate again in 1894. He died on June 6, 1895, aboard a train traveling to Jämtland, only 27 years old.
(courtesy Wikipedia read full article here)