Chapter 4

About a quarter of a mile west of the main ruin there is another small but well-preserved cluster of rooms. It occupies the narrow ridge of a hill some 200 feet above the river. On the west and south, the hill descends abruptly to the river; on the southeast and east it slopes sharply down to a broad valley on the level of the mesa bench before mentioned, but the valley is cut by a narrow and deep canyon marking the east side of the hill. This cluster is shown on the ground plan, plate XVII, though not in its proper position. Northeast of this cluster and perhaps 200 yards distant there are traces of other rooms, but they are so faint that no plan can be made out. As shown on the sketch map, figure 284, the hill is a long narrow one, and its western side falls rapidly to a large triangular area of flat bottom land lying between it and Beaver creek, which it overlooks, as well as a large area of the valley up the river and all the fine bottom lands north and east of Verde and on the northwestern side of Beaver creek. As regards outlook, and also as regards security and facility of defense, the site of the small cluster is far superior to that of the main cluster of rooms.

About a quarter of a mile south and east of the main ruin, on the opposite side of the little valley before mentioned, a mesa bench similar to the one last described occurs; and on a point of this, extending almost to the river bank, there are traces, now nearly obliterated, of a small cluster of rooms. A short distance east of this point there is a large rounded knoll, with a peculiar terrace-like bench at about half its height. The entire summit of this knoll was occupied by rooms, of which the walls are much broken and none remain standing. This knoll, with the ruins on its summit, is shown in plate XIX, which also gives a general view from the north of the small cluster southeast of the main ruin. The character of the valley of the Verde at this point is also shown. The sketch map, figure 284, shows the location of these ruins in reference to others of the group.

The main cluster, that portion occupying the crown or summit of the butte before described, exhibits at the present time some fifty rooms in the ground plan, but there were at one time a larger number than this; and there is no doubt that rooms extended down the slopes of the hill southward and southwestward. The plan of this main cluster is peculiar; it differs from all the smaller surrounding clusters. It tells the story of a long occupancy by a people who increased largely in numbers, but who, owing to their hostile environment, could not increase the space occupied by them in proportion to their numbers. It will be noticed that while the wall lines are remarkably irregular in arrangement they are more often continuous than otherwise, more frequently continuous, in fact, than the lines of some of the smaller villages before described. The rooms are remarkably small, 10 feet square being a not unusual measurement, and built so closely together as to leave no space for interior courts. The typical rooms in the ruins of this region are oblong, generally about twice as long as broad, measuring approximately 20 by 10 feet.

In the ruin under discussion it seems that each of these oblong rooms was divided by a transverse partition into two smaller rooms, although the oblong form is also common. This is noticeable in the southwestern corner and on the eastern side of the main cluster, in the southwestern corner and on the northern end of the cluster adjoining on the north, and in all the smaller clusters. It is probable that the western central part of the main cluster was the first portion of the group of structures built, and that subsequently as the demand for accommodation increased, owing to increase of population, the rooms on the eastern and southern sides of the main cluster were added, while the rooms of the older portion were divided.

There is no evidence that any portion of this cluster attained a greater height than two stories, and only a small number of rooms reached that height. The small cluster adjoining on the north, and those on the southeast, southwest, and west, were built later and belong to the last period of the occupancy of the group. The builders exhibited a decided predilection for a flat site, as an examination of the sites of the various room clusters in the ground plan (plate XVII) will show, and when the sight of the main cluster became so crowded that additional rooms could be added only by building them on the sloping hillside, recourse was had to other sites. This tendency is also exhibited in the cluster adjoining the main cluster on the north, which was probably the second in point of age. The northern end of this small group of rooms terminates at the foot of the hill which rises northeastward, while a series of wall lines extends eastward at an angle with the lines of the cluster, but along the curve of the hillside.

The small northern cluster was in all probability inhabited by five or six families only, as contrasted with the main cluster, which had sixteen or seventeen, while the smaller clusters had each only two or three families. The strong presumption of the later building and occupancy of the smaller clusters, previously commented on, is supported by three other facts of importance, viz, the amount and height of the standing wall, the character of the sites occupied, and the extraordinary size of the rooms.

Although as a rule external appearance is an unsatisfactory criterion of age, still, other things equal, a large amount and good height of standing wall may be taken to indicate in a general way a more recent period of occupancy than wall lines much obliterated and merged into the surrounding ground level. The character of the site occupied is, however, a very good criterion of age. It was a rule of the ancient pueblo builder, a rule still adhered to with a certain degree of persistence, that enlargement of a village for the purpose of obtaining more space must be by the addition of rooms to those already built, and not by the construction of detached rooms. So well was this rule observed that attached rooms were often built on sites not at all adapted to them, when much better sites were available but a short distance away; and, although detached rooms were built in certain cases, there was always a strong reason for such exceptions to the general rule. At a late period in the history of the Pueblos this rule was not so much adhered to as before, and detached houses were often built at such points as the fancy or convenience of the builder might dictate. As the traditions are broken down the tendency to depart from the old rule becomes more decided, and at the present day several of the older Pueblo villages are being gradually abandoned for the more convenient detached dwellings, while nearly all of them have suffered more or less from this cause.

The tendency to cluster rooms in one large compact group was undoubtedly due primarily to hostile pressure from outside, and as this pressure decreased the inherent inconveniences of the plan would assert themselves and the rule would be less and less closely adhered to. It therefore follows that, in the absence of other sufficient cause, the presence of detached rooms or small clusters may be taken in a general way to indicate a more recent occupancy than a ground plan of a compact, closely built village.

The size of rooms is closely connected with the character of the site occupied. When, owing to hostile pressure, villages were built on sites difficult of access, and when the rooms were crowded together into clusters in order to produce an easily defended structure, the rooms themselves were necessarily small; but when hostile pressure from surrounding or outside tribes became less pronounced, the pueblo-builders consulted convenience more, and larger rooms were built. This has occurred in many of the pueblos and in the ruins, and in a general way a ruin consisting of large rooms is apt to be more modern than one consisting of small rooms; and where large and small rooms occur together there is a fair presumption that the occupancy of the village extended over a period when hostile pressure was pronounced and when it became less strong. It has already been shown that, owing to the social system of the pueblo-builders, there is almost always growth in a village, although the population may remain stationary in numbers or even decrease; so that, until a village is abandoned it will follow the general rule of development sketched above.

Along the southern side of Clear creek, which discharges into the Rio Verde from the east, about 4 miles below Verde, there is a flat terrace from 30 to 40 feet above the creek and some 2 or 3 miles in length. Scattered over almost the whole of this terrace are remains of houses and horticultural works, which will be described later. Near the western end of the terrace a low hill with flat top and rounded sides rises, and on the top of this occurs the ruin whose ground plan is shown in figure 285.

This ruin commands an outlook over the whole extent of the terrace and seems to have been the home pueblo with which were connected the numerous single houses whose remains cover the terrace. The ground plan is peculiar. The rooms were arranged in four rows, each row consisting of a line of single rooms, and the rows were placed approximately at right angles to one another, forming the four sides of a hollow square. The rooms are generally oblong, of the usual dimensions, and as a rule placed with their longer axes in the direction of the row. Several rooms occur, however, with their longer axes placed across the row. Thirty-eight rooms can still be traced, and there is no likelihood that there were ever more than forty, or that any of the rooms attained a greater height than one story. The population, therefore, was probably never much in excess of fifty persons, or ten to twelve families.

It will be noticed that the wall lines are only approximately rectangular. The outside dimensions of the village are as follows: Northeastern side, 203 feet; southwestern, 207 feet; southeastern, 182 feet; and northwestern, 194 feet. The northeastern and southwestern sides are nearly equal in length, but between the southeastern and the northwestern sides there is a difference of 12 feet, and this notwithstanding that the room at the western end of the southeastern row has been set out 3 feet beyond the wall line of the southwestern side. This difference is remarkable if, as the ground plan indicates, the village or the greater part of it was laid out and built up at one time, and was not the result of slow growth.

As already stated, long occupancy of a village, even without increase of population, produces a certain effect on the ground plan. This effect, so strongly marked in all the ruins already described, is conspicuous in this ruin by its almost entire absence. The ground plan is just such as would be produced if a small band of pueblo builders, consisting of ten or twelve related families, should migrate en masse to a site like the one under discussion and, after occupying that site for a few years--less than five--should pass on to some other location. Such migration and abandonment of villages were by no means anomalous; on the contrary, they constitute one of the most marked and most persistent phenomena in the history of the pueblo builders. If the general principles, already laid down, affecting the development and growth of ground plans of villages are applied to this example, the hypothesis suggested above--an incoming of people en masse and a very short occupancy--must be accepted, for no other hypothesis will explain the regularity of wall lines, the uniformity in size of rooms, and the absence of attached rooms which do not follow the general plan of the village. The latter is perhaps the most remarkable feature in the ground plan of this village. The addition of rooms attached irregularly at various points of the main cluster, which is necessarily consequent on long occupancy of a site, even without increase of population, was in this example just commenced. The result of the same process, continued over a long period of time, can be seen in the ground plan of any of the inhabited villages of today and in most of the ruins, while a plan like that of the ruin under discussion, while not unknown, is rare.

Plate XX, which is a general view of the ruin from the southwest, shows the character of the site and the general appearance of the debris, while plate XXI illustrates the character of the masonry. It will be noticed that the level of the ground inside and outside of the row of rooms is essentially the same; in other words, there has been no filling in. It will also be noticed that the amount of debris is small, and that it consists principally of rounded river bowlders. The masonry was peculiar, the walls were comparatively thin, and the lower courses were composed of river bowlders, not dressed or otherwise treated, while the upper courses, and presumably also the coping stones, were composed of slabs of sandstone and of a very friable limestone. The latter has disintegrated very much under atmospheric influences. The white areas seen in the illustrations are composed of this disintegrated limestone. The general appearance of the ruin at the present time must not be accepted as its normal condition. It is probable that the débris has undergone a process of artificial selection, the flat slabs and most available stones for building probably having been removed by neighboring settlers and employed in the construction of stone fences, which are much used in this region. Even with a fair allowance for such removal, however, there is no evidence that the rooms were higher than one story. The quantity of potsherds scattered about the ruins is noticeably small.

About 8 miles north of the mouth of Fossil creek, on the eastern side of the Verde, there is a ruin which, though very small, is interesting. At this point there is a long narrow mass of rock, the remains of a volcanic dike, some 80 or 90 feet long, which at the southern end overhangs the stream, while the other end is merged into the ground level. At its southern end the rock is some 50 feet above the water, but 150 feet northward the dike is no longer traceable. A general view of this dike is given in plate XXII, while the ground plan, figure 286, shows the character of the site. There were rooms on all that portion of the dike that stands out prominently from the ground level, and traces of other rooms can be seen on the ground level adjoining on the north and in the causeway resulting from the breaking down and disintegration of the dike. Remains of eight rooms in all can be traced, five of which were on the summit of the rock. The wall lines on the summit are still quite distinct and in places fragments of the original walls remain, as shown on the ground plan. The plan shows typical pueblo rooms of average size, and the masonry, though rough, is of the same character as that of other ruins in the vicinity.

Facility of defense undoubtedly had something to do with the choice of this location, but that it was not the only desideratum consulted is evident from the occurrence of a large area of fertile bottom land or flat river terrace immediately adjoining the ruin on the east and overlooked by it; in fact, the volcanic dike on which the ruin occurs occupies the western end of a large semicircular area of tillable land, such as already described. Viewed, however, as a village located with reference to defense it is the most perfect example--facility of obtaining water being considered--in this region. It may be used, therefore, to illustrate an important principle governing the location of villages of this type.

A study of the ground plan (figure 286) and the general view (plate XXII) will readily show that while the site and character of this village are admirably adapted for defense, so well adapted, in fact, as to suggest that we have here a fortress or purely defensive structure, still this adaptation arises solely from the selection of a site fitted by nature for the purpose, or, in other words, from an accident of environment. There has not been the slightest artificial addition to the natural advantages of the site.

The statement may seem broad, but it is none the less true, that, so far as our knowledge extends at the present time, fortresses or other purely defensive structures form a type which is entirely unknown in the pueblo region. The reason is simple; military art, as a distinct art, was developed in a stage of culture higher than that attained by the ancient pueblo builders. It is true that within the limits of the pueblo region structures are found which, from their character and the character of their sites, have been loosely described as fortresses, their describers losing sight of the fact that the adaptability of these structures to defense is the result of nature and not of art. Numerous examples are found where the building of a single short wall would double the defensive value of a site, but in the experience of the writer the ancient builders have seldom made even that slight addition to the natural advantages of the site they occupied.

The first desideratum in the minds of the old pueblo builders in choosing the location of their habitations was nearness to some area of tillable land. This land was generally adjacent to the site of the village, and was almost invariably overlooked by it. In fact this requirement was considered of far more importance than adaptability to defense, for the latter was often sacrificed to the former. A good example in which both requirements have been fully met is the ruin under discussion. This, however, is the result of an exceptionally favorable environment; as a rule the two requirements conflict with each other, and it is always the latter requirement--adaptability to defense--which suffers. These statements are true even of the so-called fortresses, of the cavate lodges, of the cliff ruins, and of many of the large village ruins scattered over the southwestern portion of the United States. In the case of the large village ruins, however, there is another feature of pueblo life which sometimes produces a different result, viz, the use of outlying single houses or small clusters separated from the main village and used for temporary abode during the farming season only. This feature is well developed in some of the modern pueblos, particularly in Zuñi and Acoma.

The principle illustrated by this ruin is an important one. Among the ancient pueblo builders there was no military art, or rather the military art was in its infancy; purely defensive structures, such as fortresses, were unknown, and the idea of defense never reached any greater development than the selection of an easily defended site for a village, and seldom extended to the artificial improvement of the site. There is another result of this lack of military knowledge not heretofore alluded to, which will be discussed at length on some other occasion and can only be mentioned here: this is the aggregation of a number of small villages or clusters into the large many-storied pueblo building, such as the modern Zuñi or Taos.

About 14 miles north of the mouth of Fossil creek, on the eastern side of the river, there is another ruin somewhat resembling the last described. A large red rock rises at the intersection of two washes, about a mile back from the river, and on a bench near the summit are the remains of walls. These are illustrated in plate XXIII. In general appearance and in character of site this ruin strongly resembles a type found in the San Juan region. There seem to have been only a few rooms on the top of the rock, and the prominent wall seen in the illustration was probably a retaining or filling wall in a cleft of the rock. Such walls are now used among the Pueblos for the sides of trails, etc. It is probable that at one time there were a considerable number of rooms on the rock; the debris on the ground at the base of the rock on the western side, shown in the illustration, is rather scanty; on the opposite or eastern side there is more, and it is not improbable there were rooms on the ground here. It is likely that access was from this side.

It should be noted that this ruin, which is of a type known as “fortress” by some writers, is so placed as to command an extensive outlook over the large valley below and over the two small valleys above, as well as the considerable area of flat or bottom land formed by the junction of the small valleys. It is a type of a subordinate agricultural settlement, and had the defensive motive been entirely absent from the minds of the builders of this village it would undoubtedly have been located just where it now is, as this is the best site for an agricultural settlement for some distance up and down the river.

Remains of walls somewhat similar to these last described occur on a butte or pinnacle on the eastern side of the river and about 7 miles north of the mouth of Fossil creek. From the south this pinnacle is a most conspicuous landmark, rising as it does some 2,500 feet above the river within a distance of a quarter of a mile. The upper 50 feet of the eminence consists of bare red rock split into sharp points and little pinnacles, as shown in figure 287, which represents only the upper portion of the butte. The heavy black lines on the sketch map are walls. Some of these were doubtless mere retaining walls, but others are still standing to a considerable height, and there is yet much débris on the slope of the rock forming the eastern side of the butte near its top. It is doubtful whether these rooms were ever used for habitations, and more probable that they were used as a shrine or for some analogous purpose.

Perhaps a quarter of a mile northeastward, in the saddle connecting the butte with the contiguous hills in that direction, there are remains of three small rooms, located east of a low swell or ridge. Figure 288 shows the general character of the site, which seems to have been a favorite type for temporary structures, single-room outlooks, etc. Among the fragments of pottery picked up here were pieces of polished red ware of the southern type, and part of the bottom of a large pot of so-called corrugated ware.

Half a mile northwestward, in a saddle similar to that last described, and east of the crown of a hill, are the remains of a single room, nearly square and perhaps 10 feet long. These single rooms and small cluster remains are unusual in this region, and seem to replace the bowlder-marked ruins so common south of the East Verde (to be described more fully later). Although the walls of this single-room structure were built of river bowlders, they are well marked by débris and are of the same type as those in the ruins at the mouths of the East Verde and Fossil creek.

CAVATE LODGES.