In the southern cave there are no traces of masonry, but the back of the cave is covered with hand prints and pictographs of deer, as shown in the plate. In the northern cave there are traces of walls. Many of the sites do not show the faintest trace of house structures; some of them have remains of storage cists, and many have remains of Navaho burial cists, associated with pictographs not of Navaho origin. Some idea of the number and distribution of these sites may be obtained from the following list, wherein the numbers represent the location shown on the detailed map: 2, 8, 9, 11, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 30, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 53, 54, 57, and 66—in all 21 sites which occur between the mouth

of De Chelly and the junction of Monument canyon, 13 miles above. Beyond this point they are rare, as the areas of cultivable land become scarce. A similar distribution prevails in Del Muerto.

[DETAILS]

[SITES]

The character of the site occupied by a ruin is a very important feature where the response to the physical environment is as ready and complete as it is in the ancient pueblo region. This feature has not received the attention it deserves, for it is more than probable that in the ultimate classification of ruins that will some day be formulated the site occupied will be one of the principal elements considered, if not the most important. The site is not so important per se, but must be considered with reference to the specific character of the ruin upon it, its ground plan, the character of other ruins in the vicinity which may have been connected with it, and its topographic environment. The character and ground plan of a cliff ruin would be so much out of place on an open valley site that it would immediately attract attention. The reverse is equally remarkable.

Considering all that has been written about the cliff ruins as defensive structures, it is strange how little direct evidence there is to support the hypothesis; how few examples can be cited which show anything that can be construed as the result of the defensive motive except the general impression produced on the observer. Nor, on the other hand, do these ruins as a whole give any support to the theory that they represent an intermediate stage in the development of the pueblo people. Some few may, perhaps those examined by Mr F. H. Cushing south and east of Zuñi do; but more than 99 per cent of them give more support to a theory that they are the ultimate development of pueblo architecture than to the other hypothesis, for they contain in themselves evidence of a knowledge of construction equal and even superior to that shown in many of the modern pueblo villages. The only thing anomalous or distinctive about the cliff ruins, considered as an element of pueblo architecture, is the character of site occupied. If this were dictated by the defensive motive, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the same motive would have some direct influence on the structures, yet examples where it has affected the arrangement of rooms or ground plan or the character of the masonry are exceedingly rare and generally doubtful.

It is well to specify that in the preceding remarks the term cliff ruin has been applied to small settlements, comprising generally less than four rooms, sometimes only one or two, and usually located on high and almost inaccessible sites. These are comprised in class IV of the classification here followed. Regular villages located in the cliffs or on top of the talus (class III) are a different matter. These have nothing in common with the small ruins, except that sometimes there is a similarity

of site. Doubtless in some of these ruins the defensive motive operated to a certain extent. In classes I and II, however, the influence of the defensive motive, in so far as it affected the character of site chosen, is conspicuous by its absence. As there is no evidence that the cliff ruins of class IV were separate and distinct from the other ruins, but the contrary, the defensive motive may be assigned a very subordinate place among the causes which produced that phase of pueblo architecture found in Canyon de Chelly.

An hypothesis as to the order in which sites of the various classes were occupied can not be based on the present condition of the ruins. It is more than likely that the older ruins served as quarries of building material for succeeding structures erected near them, and probably some of the cliff ruins themselves served in this way for the erection of others, for there are many sites from which the building stone has been almost entirely removed; yet there is no doubt that these sites were formerly occupied. The Navaho also have contributed to the destruction. Notwithstanding their horror of contact with the remains of the dead, quite a number of buildings have been erected by these Indians with material derived from adjacent ruins. It is evident that the gathering of this material would be a much lighter task than to quarry and prepare it, no matter how roughly the latter might be done.

In a study of some ruins in the valley of the Rio Verde, made a few years ago, a suggestion was made of the order in which ruins of various kinds succeeded one another—a sort of chronologic sequence, of which the beginning in time could not be determined. Studies of the ruins and inhabited villages of the old province of Tusayan (Moki) and Cibola (Zuñi), and a cursory examination of ruins on Gila river, show that they all fall easily into the same general order, which is somewhat as follows: