Aboriginal Remains In Verde Valley, Arizona Part 3

Plate XX, which is a general view of the ruin from the southwest, shows the character of the site and the general appearance of the debris, while plate XXI ill.u.s.trates the character of the masonry. It will be noticed that the level of the ground inside and outside of the row of rooms is essentially the same; in other words, there has been no filling in. It will also be noticed that the amount of debris is small, and that it consists princ.i.p.ally of rounded river bowlders. The masonry was peculiar, the walls were comparatively thin, and the lower courses were composed of river bowlders, not dressed or otherwise treated, while the upper courses, and presumably also the coping stones, were composed of slabs of sandstone and of a very friable limestone. The latter has disintegrated very much under atmospheric influences. The white areas seen in the ill.u.s.trations are composed of this disintegrated limestone.

The general appearance of the ruin at the present time must not be accepted as its normal condition. It is probable that the debris has undergone a process of artificial selection, the flat slabs and most available stones for building probably having been removed by neighboring settlers and employed in the construction of stone fences, which are much used in this region. Even with a fair allowance for such removal, however, there is no evidence that the rooms were higher than one story. The quant.i.ty of potsherds scattered about the ruins is noticeably small.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 286.

Ground plan of ruin 8 miles north of Fossil creek.]

About 8 miles north of the mouth of Fossil creek, on the eastern side of the Verde, there is a ruin which, though very small, is interesting.

At this point there is a long narrow ma.s.s of rock, the remains of a volcanic dike, some 80 or 90 feet long, which at the southern end overhangs the stream, while the other end is merged into the ground level. At its southern end the rock is some 50 feet above the water, but 150 feet northward the dike is no longer traceable. A general view of this dike is given in plate XXII, while the ground plan, figure 286, shows the character of the site. There were rooms on all that portion of the dike that stands out prominently from the ground level, and traces of other rooms can be seen on the ground level adjoining on the north and in the causeway resulting from the breaking down and disintegration of the dike. Remains of eight rooms in all can be traced, five of which were on the summit of the rock. The wall lines on the summit are still quite distinct and in places fragments of the original walls remain, as shown on the ground plan. The plan shows typical pueblo rooms of average size, and the masonry, though rough, is of the same character as that of other ruins in the vicinity.

Facility of defense undoubtedly had something to do with the choice of this location, but that it was not the only desideratum consulted is evident from the occurrence of a large area of fertile bottom land or flat river terrace immediately adjoining the ruin on the east and overlooked by it; in fact, the volcanic dike on which the ruin occurs occupies the western end of a large semicircular area of tillable land, such as already described. Viewed, however, as a village located with reference to defense it is the most perfect example--facility of obtaining water being considered--in this region. It may be used, therefore, to ill.u.s.trate an important principle governing the location of villages of this type.

A study of the ground plan (figure 286) and the general view (plate XXII) will readily show that while the site and character of this village are admirably adapted for defense, so well adapted, in fact, as to suggest that we have here a fortress or purely defensive structure, still this adaptation arises solely from the selection of a site fitted by nature for the purpose, or, in other words, from an accident of environment. There has not been the slightest artificial addition to the natural advantages of the site.

The statement may seem broad, but it is none the less true, that, so far as our knowledge extends at the present time, fortresses or other purely defensive structures form a type which is entirely unknown in the pueblo region. The reason is simple; military art, as a distinct art, was developed in a stage of culture higher than that attained by the ancient pueblo builders. It is true that within the limits of the pueblo region structures are found which, from their character and the character of their sites, have been loosely described as fortresses, their describers losing sight of the fact that the adaptability of these structures to defense is the result of nature and not of art. Numerous examples are found where the building of a single short wall would double the defensive value of a site, but in the experience of the writer the ancient builders have seldom made even that slight addition to the natural advantages of the site they occupied.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XXV.

MAP OF GROUP OF CAVATE LODGES IN WHITE CANYON, 3 MILES BELOW CLEAR CREEK, EAST SIDE RIO VERDE.]

The first desideratum in the minds of the old pueblo builders in choosing the location of their habitations was nearness to some area of tillable land. This land was generally adjacent to the site of the village, and was almost invariably overlooked by it. In fact this requirement was considered of far more importance than adaptability to defense, for the latter was often sacrificed to the former. A good example in which both requirements have been fully met is the ruin under discussion. This, however, is the result of an exceptionally favorable environment; as a rule the two requirements conflict with each other, and it is always the latter requirement--adaptability to defense--which suffers. These statements are true even of the so-called fortresses, of the cavate lodges, of the cliff ruins, and of many of the large village ruins scattered over the southwestern portion of the United States. In the case of the large village ruins, however, there is another feature of pueblo life which sometimes produces a different result, viz, the use of outlying single houses or small cl.u.s.ters separated from the main village and used for temporary abode during the farming season only.

This feature is well developed in some of the modern pueblos, particularly in Zuni and Acoma.

The principle ill.u.s.trated by this ruin is an important one. Among the ancient pueblo builders there was no military art, or rather the military art was in its infancy; purely defensive structures, such as fortresses, were unknown, and the idea of defense never reached any greater development than the selection of an easily defended site for a village, and seldom extended to the artificial improvement of the site.

There is another result of this lack of military knowledge not heretofore alluded to, which will be discussed at length on some other occasion and can only be mentioned here: this is the aggregation of a number of small villages or cl.u.s.ters into the large many-storied pueblo building, such as the modern Zuni or Taos.

About 14 miles north of the mouth of Fossil creek, on the eastern side of the river, there is another ruin somewhat resembling the last described. A large red rock rises at the intersection of two washes, about a mile back from the river, and on a bench near the summit are the remains of walls. These are ill.u.s.trated in plate XXIII. In general appearance and in character of site this ruin strongly resembles a type found in the San Juan region. There seem to have been only a few rooms on the top of the rock, and the prominent wall seen in the ill.u.s.tration was probably a retaining or filling wall in a cleft of the rock. Such walls are now used among the Pueblos for the sides of trails, etc. It is probable that at one time there were a considerable number of rooms on the rock; the debris on the ground at the base of the rock on the western side, shown in the ill.u.s.tration, is rather scanty; on the opposite or eastern side there is more, and it is not improbable there were rooms on the ground here. It is likely that access was from this side.

It should be noted that this ruin, which is of a type known as "fortress" by some writers, is so placed as to command an extensive outlook over the large valley below and over the two small valleys above, as well as the considerable area of flat or bottom land formed by the junction of the small valleys. It is a type of a subordinate agricultural settlement, and had the defensive motive been entirely absent from the minds of the builders of this village it would undoubtedly have been located just where it now is, as this is the best site for an agricultural settlement for some distance up and down the river.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 287.

Sketch map of ruins on pinnacle 7 miles north of Fossil creek.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 288.

Remains of small rooms 7 miles north of Fossil creek.]

Remains of walls somewhat similar to these last described occur on a b.u.t.te or pinnacle on the eastern side of the river and about 7 miles north of the mouth of Fossil creek. From the south this pinnacle is a most conspicuous landmark, rising as it does some 2,500 feet above the river within a distance of a quarter of a mile. The upper 50 feet of the eminence consists of bare red rock split into sharp points and little pinnacles, as shown in figure 287, which represents only the upper portion of the b.u.t.te. The heavy black lines on the sketch map are walls.

Some of these were doubtless mere retaining walls, but others are still standing to a considerable height, and there is yet much debris on the slope of the rock forming the eastern side of the b.u.t.te near its top. It is doubtful whether these rooms were ever used for habitations, and more probable that they were used as a shrine or for some a.n.a.logous purpose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XXVI.

STRATA OF NORTHERN CANYON WALL.]

Perhaps a quarter of a mile northeastward, in the saddle connecting the b.u.t.te with the contiguous hills in that direction, there are remains of three small rooms, located east of a low swell or ridge. Figure 288 shows the general character of the site, which seems to have been a favorite type for temporary structures, single-room outlooks, etc. Among the fragments of pottery picked up here were pieces of polished red ware of the southern type, and part of the bottom of a large pot of so-called corrugated ware.

Half a mile northwestward, in a saddle similar to that last described, and east of the crown of a hill, are the remains of a single room, nearly square and perhaps 10 feet long. These single rooms and small cl.u.s.ter remains are unusual in this region, and seem to replace the bowlder-marked ruins so common south of the East Verde (to be described more fully later). Although the walls of this single-room structure were built of river bowlders, they are well marked by debris and are of the same type as those in the ruins at the mouths of the East Verde and Fossil creek.

CAVATE LODGES.

Cavate lodges comprise a type of structures closely related to cliff houses and cave dwellings. The term is a comparatively new one, and the structures themselves are not widely known. They differ from the cliff houses and cave dwellings princ.i.p.ally in the fact that the rooms are hollowed out of cliffs and hills by human agency, being cut out of soft rock, while the former habitations are simple, ordinary structures built for various reasons within a cove or on a bench in the cliffs or within a cave. The difference is princ.i.p.ally if not wholly the result of a different physical environment, i.e., cavate lodges and cave dwellings are only different phases of the same thing; but for the present at least the name will be used and the cavate lodges will be treated as a separate cla.s.s.

There are but three regions in the United States in which cavate lodges are known to occur in considerable numbers, viz, on San Juan river, near its mouth; on the western side of the Rio Grande near the pueblo of Santa Clara; and on the eastern slope of San Francisco mountain, near Flagstaff, Arizona. To these may now be added the middle Verde region, from the East Verde to a point north of Verde, Arizona.

Within the middle Verde region there are thousands of cavate lodges, sometimes in cl.u.s.ters of two or three, oftener in small groups, and sometimes in large groups comprising several hundred rooms. One of these large groups, located some 8 miles south of Verde on the eastern side of the river, has been selected for ill.u.s.tration.

The bottom lands of the Rio Verde in the vicinity of Verde have been already described, and the cavate lodges in question occur just below the southern end of this large area of tillable land, and some of them overlook it. The river at this point flows southward, and extending toward the east are two little canyons which meet on its bank. North and south of the mouth of the canyons the bank of the river is formed by an inaccessible bluff 180 or 200 feet high. These bluffs are washed by the Verde during high water, though there is evidence that up to a recent time there was a considerable area of bottom land between the river and the foot of the bluff. Plate XXIV shows the northern end of the group from a low mesa on the opposite side of the river; the eastern bank of the river can be seen in the foreground, while the sandy area extending to the foot of the bluff is the present high-water channel of the Verde.

The map (plate XXV) shows the distribution of the cavate lodges composing the group, and plate XXVI shows the character of the site. The cavate lodges occur on two distinct levels--the first, which comprises nearly all the cavate lodges, is at the top of the slopes of talus and about 75 feet above the river; the second is set back from 80 to 150 feet from the first tier horizontally and 30 or 40 feet above it. The cavate lodges occur only in the face of the bluff along the river and in the lower parts of the two little canyons before mentioned. These canyons run back into the mesa seen in the ill.u.s.tration, which in turn forms part of the foothills rising into the range of mountains hemming in the Rio Verde on the east.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 289.

Diagram showing strata of canyon wall.]

The walls of the canyon in the cavate-lodge area are composed of three distinct strata, clearly defined and well marked. The relations of the strata, at points on the northern and western sides of the north canyon, are shown in figure 289 and plate XXVI. The lowest stratum shown in the figure is that in which almost all the cavate lodges occur. It is about 8 feet thick and composed of a soft, very friable, purple-gray sandstone. Above it lies a greenish-white bed a few inches thick, followed by a stratum of a p.r.o.nounced white, about 12 feet thick. This heavy stratum is composed of calcareous clay, and the green bed of a calcareous clay with a mixture of sand. The white stratum is divided at two-thirds its height by a thin belt of greenish-white rock, and above it there is another belt of purple-gray sandstone about 12 feet thick.

The top of this sandstone forms the ground surface south of the point shown in the diagram, while on the north and east it forms the floor of the upper tier of cavate lodges.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XXVII.

RUIN ON NORTHERN POINT OF CAVATE LODGE CANYON.]

On the southern side of the canyon the lower purple stratum shows three distinct substrata; the upper is reddish purple and about 3 feet thick, the middle is purple gray, about 7 feet thick, and apparently softer than the upper and lower strata. The lodges occur in the middle purple substratum, their floors composed of the upper surface of the lower stratum and their roofs of the under surface of the upper stratum. Those on the north side are similarly placed, their roofs being about 3 feet below the white, except that in several instances the upper part of the purple up to the white has fallen, making the cavity larger. This has occurred, however, since the abandonment of the caves, and the debris, still fresh looking, is in situ.

The formation in which the lodges occur is not of volcanic origin, although the beds composing it were perhaps deposited by hot springs during the period of great volcanic activity which produced San Francisco mountain in central Arizona and the great lava flows south of it. In view of the uncertainty on this point and the further fact that almost all the cavate lodges heretofore found were excavated in tufa, ash, or other soft volcanic deposits, the report of Mr. Joseph S.

Diller, petrographer of the U.S. Geological Survey, will be of interest.

It is as follows:

The coa.r.s.e-grained specimen is sandstone, that of medium grain is argillaceous sandstone, and the fine-grained one is calcareous clay.

The coa.r.s.e-grained friable sandstone, in which the lodges have been excavated, consists chiefly of subangular and rounded grains of quartz and feldspar with a small proportion of black particles. Many of the latter are magnet.i.te, while the others are hornblende and various ferromagnesian silicates. I did not detect any fragments of volcanic origin.

The specimen of argillaceous sandstone is made up of thin layers of fine-grained sand of the same sort as the first, alternating with others containing considerable clay. In the clay layers, a trace of carbonate of lime was found here and there, forming a transition of the calcareous clay.

The calcareous clay when placed in acid effervesces vigorously, but when allowed to stand the effervescence ceases in a few minutes and the insoluble white clay remains.

All the strata composing this formation are very soft; the purple-gray material of the middle layer is so soft that its surface can be rubbed off with the hand. They are also minutely stratified or laminated, and the laminae are not well cemented together, so that a blow on the roof of a cavity with a stone or other implement will bring off slabs varying from half an inch to an inch and a half in thickness. These thin strata or laminae are of unequal hardness, weathering in places several inches into the face of the rock in thin streaks of a few inches or less. The middle purple stratum exhibits this quality somewhat more decidedly than the others, and this fact has doubtless determined the selection of this stratum for the location of the lodges, as a room can be excavated in it more easily than a room of a similar size could be built up with loose rock.

The almost absolute dependence of the native builder on nature as he found it is well ill.u.s.trated by these cavate lodges. At a point in the northern wall of the northernmost canyon, shown in the diagram (figure 289) and in plate XXVI, there is a small fault with a throw of about 2 feet, and the floors of the lodges west of the fault are just that much lower than the floors east of it. Furthermore, where the purple-gray stratum in which the lodges occur is covered up by the rising ground surface, the cavate lodges abruptly cease. In the northern and southern ends of the group the talus encroaches on and partly covers the purple-gray stratum, and in these places the talus has been removed from the face of the rock to permit the excavation of lodges. In short, the occurrence of the cavate lodges in this locality is determined absolutely by the occurrence of one particular stratum, and when that stratum disappears the lodges disappear. So far as can be ascertained without actually excavating a room there is no apparent difference between the stratum in which the lodges occur and the other purple strata above and below it. That there is some difference is indicated by the confinement of the lodges to that particular level, but that the difference is very slight is shown by the occurrence in two places of lodges just above the princ.i.p.al tier, a kind of second-story lodge, as it were. It is such differences in environment as these, however, often so slight as to be readily overlooked, which determine some of the largest operations carried on by the native builders, even to the building of some of the great many-storied pueblos, and, stranger still, sometimes leading to their complete abandonment.

In the region under discussion cavate lodges usually occur in connection with and subordinate to village ruins, and range in number from two or three rooms to cl.u.s.ters of considerable size. Here, however, the cavate lodge is the feature which has been most developed, and it is noteworthy that the village ruins that occur in connection with them are small and unimportant and occupy a subordinate position.

There are remains of two villages connected with the cavate lodges just described, perched on the points of the promontories which form the mouths of the two canyons before mentioned. The location of these ruins is shown in plate XXV. The one on the southern promontory is of greater extent than that on the northern point, and both are now much broken down, no standing wall remaining. A general view of the ruin on the northern promontory is given in plate XXVII, and the same ill.u.s.tration shows the remains of the other village on the flat top of the promontory in the farther part of the foreground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XXVIII.

CAVATE LODGE WITH WALLED FRONT.]

The cavate lodges are generally rudely circular in shape, sometimes oblong, but never rectangular. The largest are 25 and even 30 feet in diameter, and from this size range down to 5 or 6 feet and thence down to little cubby-holes or storage cists. Owing to their similarity, particularly in point of size, it is difficult to draw a line between small rooms and large storage cists, but including the latter there are two hundred rooms on the main level, divided into seventy-four distinct and separate sets. These sets comprise from one to fourteen rooms each.

On the upper level there are fifty-six rooms, divided into twenty-four sets, making a total of two hundred and fifty-six rooms. As nearly as can be determined by the extent of these ruins the population of the settlement was probably between one hundred and fifty and two hundred persons.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 290.

Walled storage cist.]

There is great variety in the rooms, both in size and arrangement. As a rule each set or cl.u.s.ter of rooms consists of a large apartment, entered by a narrow pa.s.sageway from the face of the bluff, and a number of smaller rooms connected with it by narrow doorways or short pa.s.sages and having no outlet except through the large apartment. As a rule two or more of these smaller back rooms are attached to the main apartment, and sometimes the back rooms have still smaller rooms attached to them. In several cases there are three rooms in a series or row extending back into the rock, and in one instance (at the point marked _E_ on the map, plate XXV) there are four such rooms, all of good size.

Attached to the main apartment, and sometimes also to the back rooms, there are usually a number of storage cists, differing from the smaller rooms of the cl.u.s.ter only in size. These cists or cubby-holes range in size from a foot to 5 feet in diameter, and are nearly always on a level of the floor, although in some instances they extend below it. Storage cists are also sometimes excavated in the exterior walls of the cliffs, and occasionally they are partly excavated and partly inclosed by a rough, semicircular wall. An example of the latter type is shown in figure 290.