Naturally cavate dwellings grade into cliff houses, but neither of these types can be confounded with the first group, which affords us no difficulty in identification. All these kinds of dwellings were made by people of the same culture, the character of the habitation depending on geological environment.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY—— SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCIa
CAVATE DWELLINGS—RIO VERDE
In Verde valley, villages, cliff houses, and cavate dwellings exist together, and were, I believe, contemporaneously inhabited by a people of the same culture.
These types of ancient habitations are not believed to stand in the relationship of sequence in development; nor is one simpler or less difficult of construction than the others. Cliff houses display no less skill and daring than do the villages in the plain, called pueblos. The cavate dwellings are likewise a form of habitation which shows considerable workmanship, and are far from caves like those inhabited by "cave men." These dwellings were laboriously excavated with rude implements; had floors, banquettes, windows, walled recesses, and the like. It is hardly proper to regard them, as less difficult to construct than pueblos or cliff houses.
Cavate dwellings, like villages or cliff houses, may be single or multiple, single or many chambered, and a cluster of these troglodytic dwellings was, in fact, as truly a village as a pueblo or cliff house. The same principle of seeking safety by crowding together held in all three instances; and this very naturally, for the culture of the inhabitants was identical. I shall consider only two of the three types of dwellings in Verde valley, namely, the second and third groups.
It has, I think, been conclusively shown by Mr Cosmos Mindeleff, so far as types of the first group of ruins on the Verde are concerned, that they practically do not differ from the modern Tusayan pueblos. The remaining types, when rightly interpreted, furnish evidence of no less important character. Notwithstanding Mindeleff's excellent descriptions of the cavate dwellings of this region, already cited, I have thought it well to bring into prominence certain features which seem to me to indicate that this form of aboriginal dwelling was high in its development, showing considerable skill in its construction, and was fashioned on the same general plan as the others. For this demonstration I have chosen one of the most striking clusters in Verde valley.