It is instructive to compare the masonry of the great houses and towers of the Mancos with that of the towers in Hill Canyon ([pl. 11, c]) in Utah, the most northern extension of these two types. In Eight Mile Ruin, one of the largest of these buildings in Hill Canyon, we have a circular tower with annexed great houses, all constructed of well-dressed stones, the masonry in the walls showing on one side of the tower. No excavations, however, have yet been undertaken in Hill Canyon Ruins, and it is not known whether the unit type of kiva is found there, but the combination of great houses and towers is evident from the ground plans elsewhere published.[41]
The feature of the towers in Hill Canyon is the clustering into groups, somewhat recalling the condition in Cannonball Ruin, where, however, they are united. In the Eight Mile Ruin one of the towers is separated from the remaining houses.
Several towers have accompanying circular depressions with surrounding mounds. This association can well be seen in Holmes Tower on the Mancos Canyon and in Davis Tower and one or two others on the Yellow Jacket. These depressions, sometimes called reservoirs, have never been excavated, but from what is known of rooms accompanying towers in the western section of Hovenweep Castle it may be that they indicate kivas. Some towers have no sunken area in the immediate vicinity, especially those mounted on rocky points or perched on bowlders. At Cannonball Ruin there are several kivas side by side in one section and towering above them is a massive walled tower and other rooms.
STRUCTURE OF TOWERS
None of the towers examined have evidences of mural pilasters to support a roof or recesses in the walls as in vaulted-roofed kivas. They are sometimes two stories high, the rafters and flooring resting on ledges of the inner wall. Lateral entrances are common and windows are absent.[42]
While the author has found no ruin of the same ground plan as Sun Temple on the Mesa Verde, D-shaped towers or great houses from several localities distantly recall this mysterious building, and there may be an identity in use between Sun Temple and the massive walled structures of the McElmo and Yellow Jacket; what that use was has not thus far been determined.[43] If they were constructed for observatories we can not account for the square tower in the South Fork of Square Tower Canyon, from which one can not even look down the canyon, much less in other directions, hemmed in as it is by cliffs. Isolated towers are often too small for defense; and they show no signs of habitation.
Are they granaries for storage of corn or places for rites and ceremonies? Do they combine several functions—observation, defense, and storage of food? Thus far in studies of more than 30 towers and great houses not one has been found so well preserved that enough remains to determine its use, and yet their walls are among the best in all southwestern ruins. Some future archeologist may find objects in towers that will demonstrate their function, but from our present knowledge no theory of their use yet suggested is satisfactory.
It is impossible from the data available to determine the century in which the towers and great houses of the region were constructed. Thus far a few were seen with great trees growing in them, but none with roofs; the state of preservation of the walls does not point to a great age. Several writers have regarded them as occupied subsequently to the Spanish conquest, while others have ascribed to them a very remote antiquity. It can hardly be questioned that the cliff-dwellers, and by inference their kindred, the tower builders, were superior in their arts to modern Pueblos.
It is important to determine first of all the forms of these towers; whether their ground plans are circular, oval, square, rectangular, or semicircular. The northern wall of many is uniformly curved and the last to fall, which might lead to the belief that the southern side, generally straight, was poorly made, but one can not determine that by direct observation, since the latter has fallen. As a matter of fact the south wall was generally low and straight, over 50 per cent of the “round” towers being semicircular, D-shaped, or some modification of that form; but we also have square and rectangular towers. It is also important to determine whether these had single or multiple chambers and the arrangement of the rooms in relation to them. This is especially desirable in towers with concentric compartments.
It is also instructive to know more of the association of towers with pueblos and cliff-dwellings or to analyze component architectural features. The tower type often occurs without appended rooms. At Cliff Palace and Square Tower House it is united with a pueblo village under cliffs; in Mud Spring Ruin it has a like relation to rooms of a pueblo in the open. Has its function changed by that union? What use did the tower serve when isolated and had it the same use when united with other kinds of rooms in cliff-dwellings and pueblos?