The rows of stones at this place, according to the same author, were composed of undressed slabs, many of which had fallen, the parallelograms averaging 3 by 8 feet in dimensions. Thin layers of bits of charcoal and pottery occur in the neighborhood. The date these slabs were placed upright was very early, for trees growing in the inclosures were estimated to be three or four hundred years old. These stones were sometimes “embedded in the sides and roots of the trees.” Holmes had the “impression that these places, if not actually burying grounds, were at least places used for the performance of funeral rites ... the remains of the dead being burned or left to decay in the open air.”
The interiors of the inclosures were found on excavation to be filled to a depth of about a foot with soil mixed with ashes. There were many fragments of pottery, and some other objects near them, but nothing to indicate, as suggested by previous observations, that they were burial cists or even crematories for burying the dead. No charred human remains occur, but charcoal is abundant. It may have been that these places were used as ovens for roasting corn or for some culinary purposes, the neighboring circular rooms being possibly used for the same purposes as towers by the people who formerly inhabited this region. They are not large enough for dwellings and the soil in them is too shallow for burial purposes. They belong to a type which is widely distributed over the district visited by the author. Especially fine examples occur north of Sandstone Canyon district.
At the base of the great cliff, on the top of which the remains in question are found, under the shelter of an overhanging bowlder, may be seen one of the finest collections of pictographs of animals and human beings. Not far from the last-mentioned bowlder the walls of a large pueblo can readily be traced along the banks of the McElmo Canyon. In his studies of the antiquities of this region the author did not penetrate west of the mouth of Yellow Jacket Canyon, but he was told by stockmen and sheep herders of the existence of many other ruins contiguous to the road all the way from this point to Bluff City. The most important of these have already been described in a general way.
GRASS MESA CEMETERY
Grass Mesa, a plateau with precipitous sides overlooking the Dolores River, is about 10 miles down the river from Dolores on the right bank of the stream. There remain few signs of former buildings at this place, but very many artifacts, pottery, stone implements, and fragments of well-worn metates occur at various places, some of which are among the best ever seen by the author. This bluff seems to have been the site of a settlement, possibly pre-Puebloan, like that on McElmo Bluff, with rough walls, resorted to for refuge, and later used as a cemetery. It is well adapted for these purposes, its top being almost inaccessible on the river side. There are many other similar sites of Indian settlements farther down the river, but this is one of the most typical. The scenery along the road that follows the banks of the river from Dolores is ever to be remembered on account of high cliffs on each side.
RESERVOIRS
Many artificial reservoirs dating to prehistoric times were observed in the area covered by the author’s reconnoissance. These fall into two well-marked types, one form being a circular depression, apparently excavated and sometimes walled up with earth or stones. The other form was not excavated by man, but the sloping surface of rock was surrounded on the lowest level by a bank of earth, forming a dam or retaining wall. Both types of reservoirs are commonly formed near some former center of population, but sometimes occur far from mounds, wherever the surface of the land has a convenient slope and the water can be compounded by a retaining wall. The height of the bank that holds back the water of these prehistoric reservoirs has been increased in some cases by stockmen; the walls of others still remain practically the same height they were when constructed by the aborigines. One of the best examples of the second type of reservoir, the retaining wall of which is shown in [plate 32, a], is crossed by the road to Bluff City near the ruins in Holly Canyon, not far from Picket corral. A few miles north of this reservoir, at the edge of the cedars, the road crosses another of these ancient reservoirs, whose retaining bank has been considerably increased in height by stockmen. The ancient reservoir at Bug Mesa covers fully 4 acres, and the reservoir near Goodman Point Ruin is almost as large, and, although somewhat changed from its aboriginal condition, is still used by farmers dwelling in the neighborhood. The latter belongs to the first type; the former to the second. Reservoirs of one or the other type are generally found in the neighborhood of all large heaps of rocks, the so-called mounds that indicate the former existence of pueblos. The reservoir of the Mummy Lake village on the Mesa Verde belongs to the excavated type.
PICTOGRAPHS
At many places covered by this reconnoissance there were found interesting collections of engraved figures of ancient date cut on bowlders or vertical cliffs. These are generally situated in the neighborhood of ruins, but sometimes exist far from human remains. They generally have geometrical forms, rectangular and spiral predominating. Associated with these occur also representations of human beings, birds, and animals, and figures of bird tracks, human hands, and bear claws. There is a remarkable similarity in all these figures which sometimes occur on the stones composing the masonry of the buildings which indicates they were contemporaneous. They were pecked on the stones with rude stone chisels, but as a rule show no indication of paint. None of these figures could be regarded, without the wildest flights of the imagination, as letters or hieroglyphics, and there is no indication that inscriptions were intended. Their general character, as shown in a cluster ([pl. 33]), indicates rather clan symbols; in some instances spiral forms were probably made to indicate the presence of water. The incised figures on the walls of buildings were probably decorative in character, the first efforts of primitive man to embellish the walls of his dwellings, an art which reached a very high development in Mexico and Central America. There are, however, indications that these figures were covered with plaster and were therefore invisible, so that we might suppose them to be masons’ signs, indicating the clan kinship of those who constructed the walls. Perhaps the largest group of these pictographs occurs on an eroded bowlder near the mouth of the Yellow Jacket Canyon, just below the great promontory separating it from the McElmo, on the surface of which are the remarkable dwellings composed of slabs of stone set on edge. Another large cluster, the members of which are of the same general style as that already mentioned, was seen in Sandstone Canyon, a few miles south of the road from Dolores to Monticello. There are several groups of pictographs in the neighborhood of the large towers elsewhere described. The most noteworthy of these is situated at the head of the south fork of Square Tower Canyon on a vertical cliff below the ruined Tower No. 4. The face of the cliff is very much eroded, and the figures are in places almost illegible. They consist of bird designs, accompanied with figures of snakes, rain clouds, and other designs, portions of which are obliterated and impossible of determination. As a rule, these pictographs resemble very closely those in the cliff-houses of the Mesa Verde and add their evidence of a uniformity of art design in these two regions.
In addition to pictographs cut on the surface of the cliff, we also find in sheltered caves others not incised but with indications of color, showing the former existence of painted figures. Some of these, however, are not ascribed to the Indians who built the towers, but to a later tribe who camped in this region after the house builders had disappeared. They were probably made by wandering bands of Ute Indians, and are not significant in a comparison of the different kinds of buildings described in this article.