After a four-year hiatus, the Time Team archaeologists reconvened at the Dillard Site in Southwest Colorado to investigate a Basketmaker III community. This stunning landscape has played host to humankind for more than a thousand years.

While excavation and filming got underway, the Time Team field school commenced at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. Below, high school students from SW Colorado and New Mexico learn about ancestral Pueblo architecture and fire-making in the Center's replica pithouse.

Later in the afternoon, students tried their hands at atlatl-hunting. Their quarry: Crow Canyon's resident plastic decoy turkey Ralph. 

Turkeys were among the many species encountered by the people of Mesa Verde. Today, the area remains a wildlife hotspot. The Dillard site is crawling with prairie dogs, rabbits and marmots. But I was curious about what lurks around our excavation site when all of the people leave. So I placed a camera trap a few feet away from the Great Kiva. 

And I got a bobcat! Captured here in a rather blown-out infrared flash. This confirms that non-humans also have an interest in archaeology! Maybe not. But like the land itself, wildlife is another element of Mesa Verde's natural heritage.