Conclusions

Geographically the Mimbres Valley is the northern extension of the drainage area of the large interior plateau, the lowest level of which is occupied by Palomas, Guzman, and other so-called lakes. The Casas Grandes, Mimbres, and other rivers contribute their scanty waters to these lakes, which have no outlets into the sea. As a rule the thirsty sands along the course of the river drink up the surplus waters of the Mimbres or cause them to sink beneath the surface, to reappear when the configuration of lower clay or rock formations forces them from subterranean courses. Considering the similarity in climatic and geographical conditions in the northern and southern ends of this plateau, we would expect to find cultural likenesses in the prehistoric inhabitants of the Mimbres and Casas Grandes valleys, but such is not the case. The absence of relief decoration combined with painting, so common in the pottery from the Casas Grandes region, separates the Mimbres ware from that found far to the south.[58]

There are evidences that the course of the Mimbres River through Antelope Plain has from time to time changed considerably, and although a section of its bed now lies east of the Florida Mountains, the river probably formerly made its way to the west of the same in its course to Mexico. Modifications or changes in the bed of this river have had in the past much to do with the shifting of population and obliteration of prehistoric sites, either by washing them away entirely or burying them out of sight or deeply below the surface. This concealment of evidences of prehistoric occupancy has also been aided by frequent sandstorms, when considerable quantities of soil have been transported from place to place and deposited on walls or covered implements lying on the surface of the ground. It is also possible that there has been a slow change of climate, causing a desiccation which may have been so widespread that the inhabitants of the plain were driven up river into the hills where water was more abundant, but it is well to remember that abandoned settlements or ruins exist on the banks of the Mimbres where there is still abundant water, as well as in the plain which is dry.

The depth of the present water level, as shown by drilling for wells, varies in different places in the valley, but in the neighborhood of the hills there are many springs. The configuration of the surface of the hard clay strata lying beneath the soil here and there often forces the water to rise to the surface, and ruins occur at points where at present there are no signs of surface water, although at the time they were inhabited there may have been more water.[59] Whether or not this water was brought to certain ruins by a system of artificial irrigation, the canals of which have been obliterated, we cannot say, but there is only scanty evidence that the climate here, as elsewhere, has radically changed since man occupied the valley.[60]

Although there is a remote likeness between the terraced house or pueblo community of northern New Mexico[61] and the prehistoric houses of the Lower Mimbres, its closest resemblance is to an antecedent type, for it is possible that the terraced pueblo culture in the Rio Grande Valley was preceded by another. This earlier type of habitation of the Mimbres Valley was like the fragile-walled house of the natives inhabiting a large part of Arizona and New Mexico before the Puebloan, and we have evidence that this older style of building was scattered over the present Pueblo area. There is no evidence of a terraced dwelling or pueblo more than one story high in the Mimbres or the inland basin in which it lies. In other words the ruins of the Mimbres may be regarded as older than true pueblo ruins, resembling an earlier type of dwelling that antedated, in the Rio Grande Valley, the terraced houses.

The author does not find any architectural features in the remains of the prehistoric habitations of the Mimbres Valley suggesting Casa Grande compounds, or those massive buildings with encircling walls which are characteristic of the plains of the Gila. Although the walls of the Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua, are constructed in the same way and out of material like those of Casa Grande on the Gila, the architectural feature, an encircling wall of the latter, has not yet been recognized on the Sierra Madre plateau.[62] Objects found in the Gila ruins are somewhat different in form from those of Chihuahua, while pottery from the Gila Valley ruins and that from the inland plateau in northern Chihuahua is markedly different, with very divergent symbolism. Not only do forms of stone implements of a shape unknown in southern Arizona occur in southern New Mexico, but also the methods of disposal of the dead differed among the two people. The latter practised inhumation only, the other both cremation and inhumation. The aborigines of the Mimbres Valley placed a bowl over the head or face of the dead, a practice which, so far as known, does not appear to have been so commonly in vogue in inhumation of the prehistoric people of the Lower Gila plains.

The conventional geometric symbols on prehistoric Mimbres pottery are readily distinguished from those on ware from Tulerosa, a tributary of the San Francisco. The most significant feature of the Mimbres pottery is that fifty per cent of the figures on it represent men or animals, while out of a hundred bowls from the Gila not more than two or three are ornamented with zoic designs. As we know comparatively nothing of the pottery of the sources of the Upper Gila and that part of its course which lies between the Tulerosa and the Mimbres, we can at present venture very little information on ceramic relations, but similarities or mixtures would naturally be expected, due to contact or overlapping, the type of the one valley overlaying that of the other or mingling with it.

The sources of the Upper Salt, the largest tributary of the Gila, lie far from the Mimbres, and close relationship in the pottery of the ancient people inhabiting its banks is not found or expected. It is not known whether the pottery from the Upper Salt and that from the Upper Gila is similar, for our museums have no extensive collections from the latter region from which to make comparisons and draw conclusions. We know practically nothing of the prehistoric culture of the Upper Gila.

The aborigines of the Mimbres, like those of some of the former dwellers in Pajarito Park in New Mexico, practised a modified form of urn burial, but the latter rarely decorated their pottery with figures of animals. As compared with known Pueblo ceramics, the Mimbres pottery appears to be more closely allied to ancient Keresan than to old Tewan. Judging from what remains, the houses architecturally had little in common with true pueblos.[63] There are no evidences of circular subterranean kivas with pilasters, ventilators, deflectors, and niches, as in northern New Mexico, although there is a fairly large proportion of subterranean rooms or pit dwellings which may have been their prototypes. Architecturally the prehistoric habitations of the Mimbres Valley represent an old house form widely distributed in the Pueblo region or that antedating the pueblo or terraced-house type before the kiva had developed.

There are not sufficient data at hand to determine satisfactorily the kinship of the prehistoric inhabitants of Mimbres Valley, but as far as may be judged by pottery symbols it may be supposed that their culture resembled that of other sedentary people of New Mexico and Arizona in early times, as well as that of peoples of Chihuahua. It appears to the author that there are so many cultural similarities among the sedentary people which inhabited the Sierra Madre plateau, of which the Antelope Plain of Mimbres Valley is only a northern extension, that we may regard their culture as closely related. A specialized high development of this inland culture took place along the Casas Grandes River, culminating in Chihuahua. The Mimbres Valley was inhabited by people somewhat less developed in culture.

Although the ancients of the Mimbres were related on the one side to the Pueblos of New Mexico and on the other to more southern people, that relationship existed between the ancestors of the same rather than with modern Pueblos, and reached back to a time before the terraced communal house type originated. This type of house arose in northern New Mexico and spreading from this center extended down the San Juan as far as the Hopi, while modifications are also found in certain ruins on the Gila and Little Colorado, which, like Zuñi, it profoundly influenced, but its influence never reached as far as the Lower Mimbres.

A comparison of the limited archeological material from the Mimbres with that from other localities in the Southwest suggests a provisional hypothesis that the prehistoric culture of this valley was not modified by terraced architecture nor greatly affected by that of the Lower Gila type, both of which evolved independently and locally, but belonged to an older type with which it had much in common.

PL. 1

FIG. 1.—WOMAN DANCER. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. 12 BY 6 INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

FIG. 2.—DANCING FIGURE. RED DECORATION. DIAMETER 5 INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

PL. 2

FIG. 1. TWO WOLVES. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. 11 BY 5½ INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

FIG. 2. MOUNTAIN SHEEP. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. 11 BY 5½ INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

PL. 3

FIG. 1.—BIRD A. RED AND WHITE WARE. 9 BY 4 INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

FIG. 2.—BIRD B. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. 10 BY 5 INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

PL. 4

FIG. 1. BIRD C. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. 10 BY 5½ INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

FIG. 2. BIRD F. RED AND WHITE WARE. DIAMETER 8 INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

PL. 5

FIG. 1.—PROBLEMATICAL ANIMAL. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. 15 BY 6 INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

FIG. 2—PROBLEMATICAL ANIMAL. RED DECORATION. OSBORN RUIN.

PL. 6

FIG. 1.—GRASSHOPPER. RED FIGURE. DIAMETER 5 INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

FIG. 2.—FROG. DIAMETER 10 INCHES. OSBORN RUIN.

PL. 7

FIG 1. FROGS AND BIRDS. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. DIAMETER ABOUT 12 INCHES. OLDTOWN RUIN.

FIG. 2. FISHES. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. 11 BY 4½ INCHES.

PL. 8

GEOMETRICAL DESIGNS. DIAMETER ⅐ NATURAL SIZE

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In a letter to Professor W. H. Holmes, published in his paper, "Flint Implements and Fossil Remains from a Sulphur Spring at Afton, Indian Territory," Mr. A. R. Graham gives an instructive account of cleaning out the Faywood Hot Springs where he found the following relics: (1) parts of skulls and bones of several human beings; (2) over fifty spearheads and arrowheads of every shape and style of workmanship, the spearheads being valuable for their size and symmetry; (3) nine large warclubs made of stone; (4) a large variety of teeth of animals as well as large bones of extinct animals; (5) the most interesting relics are ten stone pipes from four to seven inches in length; (6) flint hatchet and a stone hammer, together with stones worn flat from use; beads made of vegetable seed and bird bones; part of two Indian bows with which was found a quiver in which was quite a bunch of long, coarse black hair that was soon lost after being dried.—Amer. Anthrop., n. s., vol. 4, pp. 126, 127.

[2] The Santa Rita mines early attracted the conquistadors looking for gold, and were worked in ancient times by the Spaniards, the ores obtained finding an outlet along a road down the valley to the city of Chihuahua. The prehistoric people also mined native Mimbres copper, and probably obtained from these mines and from those in Cook's Range, the native copper from which were made the hawk-bells sometimes found in Arizona and New Mexico. From these localities also were derived fragments of float copper often found in Southwestern ruins and commonly ascribed to localities in Mexico. From here came also a form of primitive stone mauls used in early days of the working of the mines.

[3] The National Museum had nothing from the Lower Mimbres before this addition, although it has a few specimens, without zoic designs, from Fort Bayard, in the Upper Mimbres. The latter are figured by Dr. Hough, Bull. 87, U. S. National Museum.

[4] Archæological Institute of America, American Series, vol. 4, Final Report, Part 2, pp. 356, 357.

[5] American Antiquarian, vol. 24, p. 397, 1902.

[6] Bandelier (op. cit., p. 357) speaks of sixty ruins in a small section thirty miles along the river.

[7] Bull. 35, Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 83. See also an article subsequently published on the Culture of the Ancient Pueblos of the Upper Gila River Region, Bull. 87, 1913, U. S. National Museum, in which several bowls with geometrical designs from Fort Bayard are figured.

[8] Bandelier found that Mimbres pottery resembles that of several regions, including Casas Grandes.

[9] The Archæological Bulletin, vol. 3, No. 3, p. 70.

[10] During the author's stay in Deming he was much indebted to Dr. S. D. Swope for many kindnesses, among which was an opportunity to study his valuable collection, now in the high school of that city. He was also greatly aided by Mr. E. D. Osborn and several other citizens, and takes this opportunity to thank all who rendered assistance in his studies. The photographs reproduced in the present paper were made by Mr. Osborn.

[11] Specimens were also found by Mr. Osborn at the Byron Ranch ruin, at the Black Mountain site, and elsewhere.

[12] This is the ruin called Osborn ruin in subsequent descriptions.

[13] On some of the skulls excavated at Sikyatki, Arizona, in 1895, the author found concave disks of kaolin perforated in the center. One of these disks is represented in Fig. 356, p. 729, 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. In an article on "Urn Burial in the United States" (Amer. Anthrop., vol. 6, No. 5), Mr. Clarence B. Moore, quoting his own observations and those of many others, records burials in which an inverted mortar, bowl, basket, or other object was placed over the skull of the dead, and shows the wide distribution of the custom.

[14] A beautiful view of the valley can be obtained from the top of Black Mountain, above the small ruin at its base, that will be mentioned presently.

[15] The drawings of pottery designs in this article were made by Mrs. M. W. Gill; the stone and other objects were drawn by Mr. R. Weber.

[16] A significant feature in the Mimbres form of "urn burial" is the invariable puncturing of the bowl inverted over the head. The ancient Peruvians in some instances appear to have "killed" their mortuary bowls, and life figures depicted on Peruvian pottery are sometimes arranged in pairs as in the Mimbres.

[17] Although not placed in the proper locality on his map, this ruin seems to be one of the "pueblos" (Nos. 162–164) mentioned by Dr. Hough.

[18] Archæological and Ethnological Researches in Southwestern New Mexico, Part 2, Ruin, Ancient Work Shop, Rock Mounds, etc., at Swarts' Ranch. (The Archæological Bulletin, vol. 4, No. 1, p. 14, 1913.)

[19] For a description of ruins at Swarts' and Brockman's Mills see C. L. Webster, Archæological and Ethnological Researches in Southwestern New Mexico. (The Archæological Bulletin, vol. 3, No. 4.)

[20] It is said that a Spanish bell in the Chamber of Commerce at Deming, was dug up on this ranch near the ruin. This bell might indicate an old mission at this place.

[21] The author visited these rocks in company with Dr. Swope, who has known of them for many years.

[22] Archæological and Ethnological Researches in Southwestern New Mexico, Part 4. (The Archæological Bulletin, vol. 5, No. 2, p. 21.)

[23] Mr. Webster describes "ancient pueblos" on the western side of this group of mountains as well as on the eastern slope of Cook's Range. Certain cave lodges, or walled caves, in a wild canyon on the east side of Cook's Peak are supposed by him to be the recent work of Apaches.

[24] Elaborate metal objects of early historical times have been found at various places in the Mimbres. The best of these is a fragment of an elaborately decorated stirrup, now owned by Mr. Pryor of the Nan Ranch. A copper church bell was found near his house, and other metal objects belonging to the historic epoch are reported from various ruins in the valley.

[25] Similar stone idols from the San Pedro Valley and other localities, in Arizona and New Mexico, have mortar-like depressions on their backs.

[26] One of the exceptional forms of pottery has a flat rectangular base, the four sides being formed by bending up segments of a circular disk ([fig. 18]).

[27] Called also a "wedding blanket" since it is presented to a girl on marriage by her husband's family.

[28] 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pl. 129, fig. a.

[29] The hand of the hunter pictured on a bowl already described ([fig. 13]), also carried a curved stick.

[30] Bull. 87, U. S. National Museum.

[31] The Winter Solstice Ceremony at Walpi. Amer. Anthrop., 1st ser., vol. 11, Nos. 3, 4, pp. 65–87, 101–115.

[32] An ancient crook found in a cave near Silver City is figured by Dr. Hough. Bull. 87, U. S. National Museum.

[33] Amer. Anthrop., n. s., vol. 4, p. 502.

[34] Rabbits are abundant in the Mimbres Valley and several well-drawn pictures of this animal are found on the pottery.

[35] This picture resembles that of a wolf depicted on the east wall of the warrior chamber at Walpi. See Amer. Anthrop., n. s., vol. 4, pl. 22.

[36] Pictures of the mountain lion by Pueblo artists, at least among the Hopi, have the tail turned over the back. The animal on the Mimbres bowl having no horns is not a horned deer or antelope.

[37] The decoration of the bodies of animals with rectangular figures is a common feature in Mimbres pottery, as will be seen in pictures of birds soon to be considered.

[38] In addition to the figure with the hunters which is probably a deer, as it has not the antelope marks on the neck.

[39] These horns are represented on a plane at right angles to that in which they naturally lie.

[40] 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p. 682.

[41] This is known as the sinistral circuit and is regarded as beneficial in Hopi ceremonials.

[42] 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pls. 121a, 138c. There are one or two examples of Sikyatki pottery where a geometrical design is attached to an animal figure which leads to the belief that possibly the figure attached to the rear of the above may not represent a part of another animal but rather a geometrical design of unknown significance, in this particular recalling old time Hopi ware.

[43] This figure may also be identified as a locust.

[44] Possibly depicted on a food bowl because grasshoppers were eaten by the prehistoric people of the Mimbres.

[45] A picture of a horned toad on a food bowl was recorded from Cook's Peak by Professor Webster, and there is a picture of what appears to be the same reptile in Mr. Osborn's collection. It is of course sometimes difficult to positively distinguish representations of frogs, toads, lizards, and Gila monsters, but the anatomical features are often well indicated.

[46] The Winter Solstice Ceremony. Amer. Anthrop., 1st ser., vol. II, Nos. 3, 4, pp. 65–87, 101–115.

[47] A Theatrical Performance at Walpi. Proc. Washington Acad. Sci., vol. 2, pp. 605–629. Native pictures of the Hopi horned snake may be found, pl. 26, 21st Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol.

[48] The horned serpent cult at Walpi is said to have been introduced from the south.

[49] Of all the designs representing the horned snake known to the author this picture from the Mimbres resembles most closely the pictures of this being on pottery from Casas Grandes. It has, however, the single horn found on the clay image in the Hano altar of the Winter Solstice Ceremony, although quite unlike figures on pottery from the Pajarito region. The bodily decorations in the Mimbres bowl are unlike those of the Hopi horned snake.

[50] The Mimbres formerly had many more fishes than at present, and Bartlett records that his men often brought in fine trout for his camp. These, with turkeys, quail, deer and antelopes, led him to say that his "fare might be called sumptuous in some respects" (op. cit., p. 236).

[51] Fishes are sometimes represented on Keresan pottery.

[52] As elsewhere mentioned in this paper, one of the bird figures ([fig. 25]) has a fish in its mouth.

[53] 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., Part 2, figs. 277–355.

[54] Ceremonially, every piece of pottery is supposed by the Hopi to be a living being, and when placed in the grave of the owner, it was broken or killed to let the spirit escape to join the spirit of the dead in its future home. There is no evidence that the Sikyatki mortuary pottery was purposely broken when deposited in the grave, and probably no need of perforating it to allow free exit of the spirit, for the broken encircling line, "life gateway," absent in Mimbres pottery, but almost universally present in ancient Hopi pottery, answered the same purpose, in their conception.

[55] Following Hopi analogies, where these geometrical figures frequently occur with animals they may have the same symbolic meaning as when alone, and represent shrines or prayer-offering houses.

[56] Unfortunately there are few decorated vases represented in the collection, but exploration in the field may later bring many of these to light.

[57] The author brought to Washington fragments of a food bowl from the ruin near Byron Ranch, identical with Casas Grandes ware.

[58] We must look to renewed explorations to shed light on this and many other questions which the paucity of material is yet insufficient to answer.

[59] In dry seasons the river flows under the superficial soil at a varying depth, but in floods it follows the surface bed.

[60] As the author has pointed out in several articles, the abandonment of Southwestern ruins is due to a variety of causes, chief of which are changes of climate. It is often due to other more local causes, as attacks by hostiles, salinity of soil, poor site for defence, presence of wizards, contagious diseases, etc.

[61] The designation "pueblo ruins" sometimes applied to any cluster of ancient house walls in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona, should be restricted to a well-defined architectural type which originated and reached its highest development in a small area in New Mexico. It was eventually carried by colonists in all directions from the center of origin, becoming intrusive as far west as the Hopi, Zuñi, and Little Colorado. The boundaries of this type never extended into Mexico in prehistoric times. The ruins along the Mimbres are not community houses of terraced character and should not be called pueblo ruins.

[62] This statement is made with reservation, as the true architectural form of the Casas Grandes of Chihuahua is not yet known. The published plans show no encircling wall like that of Casa Grande on the Gila; probably the Casas Grandes of Chihuahua belong to a highly specialized type different from others.

[63] While neither the terraced nor the "compound" type of architecture has been seen in the Mimbres for the reason that both were specialized in their distinct geographical areas, the fragile-walled, jacal type of habitation is identical in form, though not in time, in all three localities.

Transcriber’s Notes: