Beginning with the lateral platforms (b, [figure 245]) we first note, as we step upon it at c, about midway of its length, a small circular depression in the floor of the central room extending slightly beneath the platform, as indicated by the dotted line. It is possible that this niche was a receptacle for important household objects, although it may have been a fireplace.
In a corner of the right platform a round cist, partially hewn out of the rock, was found, but its walls (a, [figure 245]) were badly broken down by some former explorer. The floor of this recess lies below that of the platform, while the cist itself (d) reminds one of the closed or walled structures, so commonly found in the Verde, attached to the side of the cliff. On the lateral wall of this chamber, at about the height of the head, a row of small holes had been drilled into the solid wall. These holes (d, d, d) are almost too small for the insertion of roof beams, and were probably made for pegs on which to rest a beam for hanging blankets and other textile fabrics when not in use. The roof of the cave was the natural rock, and showed over its whole surface marks of a pecking implement.
The left chamber is 6 feet 6 inches broad, and from one corner, opposite the doorway, a low passageway leads into a circular chamber, 6 feet in diameter, with its floor below the platform of the lateral room. Between the chamber, on the left of the entrance, and the open air, the wall of solid rock is broken by a slit-like crevice, which allows the light to enter, and no doubt served as a window. A recess, the floor of which is elevated, on a platform opposite the doorway, is 5 feet broad, and has a small circular depression in one corner. The floor and upraise of this recess is plastered with adobe, which in several places is smooth and well made.
In comparing the remaining cavate dwellings of this series with that described, we find every degree of complication in the arrangement of rooms, from a simple cave, or irregular hole in the side of the cliff, to squared chambers with lateral rooms. The room I,[16] for instance, is rectangular, 6 feet long by 3 feet wide, with an entrance the same width as that of the room itself.
In room III, however, the external opening is very small, and there is a low, narrow ledge, or platform, opposite the doorway. There is likewise in this room a small shelf in the left-hand wall. In IV there is a raised platform on two adjacent sides of the square room, and the doorway is an irregular orifice broken through the wall to the open air.
Room IV is a subterranean chamber, most of the floor of which is littered with large fragments of rock which have fallen from the roof. It has numerous small recesses in the wall resembling cubby-holes where household utensils of various kinds were undoubtedly formerly kept. This room is instructive, in that the entrance is partially closed by two walls of masonry, which do not join. The stones are laid in adobe in which fragments of pottery were detected. These unjoined walls leave a doorway which is thus flanked on each side by stone masonry, recalling in every particular the well-known walls of cliff houses. Here, in fact, we have so close a resemblance to the masonry of true cliff houses that we can hardly doubt that the excavators of the cavate dwellings were, in reality, people similar to those who built the cliff houses of Verde valley.
Room VIII is a simple cave hewn out of the rock, with a chamber behind it, entered by a passageway made of masonry, which partially fills a larger opening. The doorway through this masonry is small below, but broadens above in much the same manner as some of the doorways in Tusayan of today.
Continuing along the left bank of the river, from the row of cavate rooms, just described, on the first mesa, we round a promontory and enter a small canyon,[17] which is perforated on each side with numerous other cavate dwellings, large and small, all of the same general character as the type described. Here, likewise, are small external openings which evidently communicated with subterranean chambers, but many of them are so elevated that access to them from the floor of the canyon or from the cliff above is not possible. A marked feature of the whole series is the existence here and there of small, often inaccessible, stone cists of masonry plastered to the side of the rocky cliff like swallows' nests.
All of these cists which are accessible had been opened and plundered before my visit, but there yet remain a few which are still intact and would repay examination and study. Similar walled-up cists are likewise found, as we shall see later, in the cliff-houses of the Red-rock country, hence are not confined to the Verde system of ruins.
Cavate dwellings similar to those here described are reported to exist in the canyons of upper Salado, Gala, and Zuñi rivers, and we may with reason suspect that the distribution[18] of cavate dwellings is as wide as that of the pueblos themselves, the sole requisite being a soft tufaceous rock, capable of being easily worked by people with stone implements. In none of the different regions in which they exist is there any probability that these caves were made by people different in culture from pueblo or cliff dwellers. They are much more likely to have been permanent than temporary habitations of the same culture stock of Indians who availed themselves of rock shelters wherever the nature of the cliff permitted excavation in its walls.