content: I agree.  We know a little bit about this settlement though.  It wasn't a settled area for very long - just a few decades.  The area was not conducive to a lot of people or farming, so I am not surprised it was abandoned.  Parts of the roof of the cave were covered in soot from where they had fires and did their cooking. From the link below:  The cliff dwellings were built in the 1280's. These Pueblo people built their homes in natural caves and in the open. There are examples of both types of settlements in the monument area. Probably not more than 8 or 10 families lived in the cliff dwellings at any one time. The rooms were probably not used more than one generation. These small, diligent, artistic people lived in cliff houses and riverside villages, tilling mesa top and riverside fields with digging sticks, grinding cornmeal with metate and mano, fashioning pottery and cloth, carrying on trade with Indians of other communities, hunting, and gathering wild plants and fruit to supplement their squash, corn, and beans. They were skilled potters, producing handsome brown bowls with black interiors and black-on-white vessels. The women averaged 5'1" and the men about 5'5" in height. They were slight of build, yet muscular, with dark hair and eyes and brown skin. The sounds of their voices and laughter echoed in the canyon. And then there were only the sounds of the streams and birds. Seven natural caves occur high in the southeast-facing cliff on a side canyon, and five of the caves contain the ruins of cliff dwellings--about 42 rooms. Walls of the buildings were constructed of stone. All the timbers seen in the dwellings are the originals. Tree-ring dates obtained from these timbers range through the 1280's. The cliff dwellers had abandoned their homes and fields by 1300. Why they left and where they went are not known. Perhaps they joined other Pueblo Indians to the north or south.