Part 6

Although some of the rooms and walls seen by the first white settlers in the valley have now collapsed, evidence of at least three stories is still clearly visible in several places in the ruin. The main part consists of three sides of a rectangle with a slightly bowing outer wall on the fourth side, composed of single rooms, which seals off the central plaza. The only entrance into the pueblo was the one along the path by which visitors enter the ruin today.

The pueblo was built of yellowish-brown and tan sandstone blocks, most of them shaped into rectangles by pecking or grinding. To support the weight of the upper rooms, the lower walls are much thicker and are composed of rubble fill with an outer veneer wall of the better shaped rectangular blocks. In many places, the spaces between them are filled with small chinking stones set in adobe mud. Sometimes broken pieces of pottery vessels were used for spalls. Originally, the walls were plastered with layers of adobe, most of which, unfortunately, have eroded away.

One unusual feature in the West Ruin consists of two very fine bands of green sandstone blocks which extend horizontally along the west outer wall of the pueblo and into a few of the interior rooms of the southwest corner. There are indications in a few places that originally there may have been three such parallel bands.

The north and northwest sides of the ruin contain the most extensive building remains. The highest walls and best construction still exist there, and one can see evidence of at least three stories. Also in the north portion, along the extreme back row of rooms at the ground level, there is a series of seven rooms, each of which has its original ceiling intact. These seven were the first entered by early relic hunters, who found most of the original doorways to the south sealed up and who broke through the walls of each room in an easterly direction. These breaches in the walls have been repaired but left open, so that today you can go from one room to the next along the path taken by the early explorers rather than through the doorways used by the Indians.

From the plaza, the Indians gained access to these northwestern rooms by entering the west side rooms. Then, turning at right angles, they proceeded northward through the doorways and rooms until they reached the final row of rooms at the north.

Although not all are open to the public because of their difficulty of access, there are 19 rooms in the ruin which still have their original ceilings intact. In making a ceiling, the Indians used two or more main stringers—that is, large beams of pine or juniper—which they set into the walls of the room at a height of 8 or 9 feet, traversing the shorter dimension of the room. Running at right angles to the stringers, they placed cottonwood poles or splints of juniper, and, over these, reeds, rushes, or woven matting. Upon this they put adobe mud which was well packed to make a firm roof, or, if there was to be another room above it, a stout floor.

Since the entire ruin has not been excavated, it is possible there may be more rooms with ceilings intact, or others in which, although the ceilings have collapsed, the first-floor walls and part of the second remain. As far as we can tell from the excavated rooms and from the surface evidence, there are 221 first-story rooms. There are intact portions of 119 second-story rooms and at least 12 third-story rooms. When originally inhabited, there were many more than the 352 rooms that we can count today. Generally, access from one room to another was by doorways that led from the back or side portions of the pueblo out toward the central plaza. However, several rooms also had lateral doorways, many of which had at one time been sealed up, either by the first inhabitants or by the second group. When burials were made in a room, it must have been necessary to seal all the doorways, unless the bodies were placed in subfloor pits or covered with dirt or debris.

Among the second-story rooms in the northeastern section are four special doorways, each placed in the corner of a room so that it connects with the adjoining diagonal room. As far as we know, corner doorways occur only in second-story rooms, with the possible exception of the double doorway mentioned below. One corner doorway leads into a room that had four normal doorways, one in each side. We do not know if this room had a special function, but it was the most accessible in the entire pueblo.

One corner doorway is possibly unique in the entire Southwest; beneath it is a second and much smaller one which led from the second-floor level into a first-floor room which could be entered only by this means. Although there is a step arrangement in this lower doorway, it is so small and its roof is so low that it must have been a matter of crawling rather than walking through it. This doorway enters the lower room so high in the wall that it would also have been necessary to have a ladder inside the room to enter or leave it.

In addition to doorways, many rooms, especially toward the back or sides of the pueblo and in the lower tiers, had one or two openings about a foot square, high in the back wall. These are above the height of an average man even today, and could not have served as view holes or windows for the Indians. They must have been put there for ventilation.

There are a few other openings in some walls which are not as large as the average doorway or as small as the ventilators. Usually these are placed at a medium height in the room and could well have served as windows to allow a view from one room to another. None of these so-called windows, however, opens to the rear or sides of the pueblo, nor is any known that opens onto the plaza in front.

Not counting the Great Kiva, which bulks so large in the plaza, excavations have revealed at least 29 other kivas or ceremonial chambers. Several, especially in the southeast corner, underlie the main structure and may represent kivas from the earlier or Developmental Pueblo Period. Besides the cluster of small kivas around the southeastern corner, there is a second grouping of larger kivas among the rooms in the northeast corner and out into the northeastern part of the plaza, where a rather large Chaco-type kiva is located. A third cluster, composed of smaller Mesa Verde-type keyhole kivas, is located near the southwestern corner of the pueblo, and Morris found scattered remains of one or two other kivas toward the front of the southwestern part.

The Great Kiva, or House of the Great Kiva as Morris called it, is centrally located in the south side of the plaza. It is essentially circular in form and has two distinct parts. The inner part—the kiva proper—has a floor about 8 feet below the surface. At ground level, and surrounding this inner section, is an outer circle of 14 arc-shaped rooms. Twelve of these are essentially similar, but the other two are markedly different. One is merely an open passage about 3½ feet wide which leads directly from the plaza to the head of the south stairway. The other is a large rectangular alcovelike structure on the north side of the kiva proper, with a stairway leading up into it from the kiva floor. On the north and west sides of this alcove, there is a low benchlike structure around the inner wall, and on the south side are what appear to be a piece of a wall and two rectangular masonry blocks. Toward the center back portion of the alcove is another low square masonry structure which may have been an altar. When excavated, this latter structure had burned poles embedded in the north side as though it once had a small roof or some kind of entablature over it.

The kiva proper is 41 feet 3½ inches wide at floor level and 48 feet 3½ inches wide at a height of 3 feet above the floor. This difference is caused by two benches or concentric rings which completely encircle the kiva base. At the north end three masonry steps led to the second bench, which at this point formed a fourth step in the stairway leading to the alcove. Above this, another masonry step was surmounted by five sets of double juniper logs set in the sides of a recess, with an average rise of 9½ inches each. These logs formed the final steps leading from the kiva floor into the north alcove.

Originally there had also been a stairway on the south side, leading to the small exit at that point. Some time while the kiva was in use, these stairs had been eliminated, the two benches had been filled in smoothly at that point, and the recess above had been partially closed. The modern wooden stairways at both these points have been placed there by the National Park Service for the convenience of visitors.

On the floor of the kiva are remains of the central altar or firepit, flanked on either side by two large rectangular stone-lined pits, the bottoms of which are well below the kiva floor. These pits, often referred to as foot drums, may have served at other times as hiding places for the shamans, or medicine men, who performed magical rites during ceremonies.

Surrounding the kiva at ground level are 12 similar arc-shaped chambers of varying dimensions, which represent components of the building as last used. Some time during one or another of the several alterations made by the Indians on the Great Kiva, every door from the plaza into these peripheral chambers was sealed with masonry. The floor of the rooms was adobe, without much sign of use, and the quantity of gypsum found by Morris indicates they may have been painted white.

Once the outer doors were sealed, entrance was doubtless by way of the niched vertical stairways in front of each room. About 10 inches from the top bench, in front of most of the alcove rooms, Morris found a slot 8½ inches wide and 8 inches deep which continued to the top of the wall. About a foot apart in each niche, were two round juniper sticks, laid side by side with their ends extending into the masonry. On the east side of the kiva, the veneer facing of the wall had fallen, and it could not be positively determined if these alcove rooms also had similar slot stairways in front of them. If they did not, the rooms would have been nonfunctional in connection with the kiva proper, and therefore the present-day restoration shows them correctly.

That the Great Kiva was originally roofed was determined by Morris’ finding the remains of four rectangular columns, countersunk below the level of the kiva floor and composed of alternating courses of masonry and wooden poles. Each course of wooden poles was laid at right angles to the alternating one below. Each column was supported by three thick circular sandstone blocks, evidently to prevent the weight of the columns, and the roof they supported, from pressing them down into the soft ground or spreading out the footings. In the excavation of the kiva fill Morris also found many pieces of charred timbers, so that although we do not know the exact method of roofing the kiva, one method which the Indians could have used has been duplicated in the modern reconstruction. Evidently the kiva burned and was then abandoned.

Just to the northwest of the main ruin at Aztec is a small tri-walled ceremonial structure known as the Hubbard Site. Sixty-four feet in diameter, it consists of three concentric walls of stone and adobe, with a small 24-foot circular kiva enclosed in the center. This kiva is not directly connected with any of the tri-walls; there is a space 1½ feet wide between the outer shell of the kiva and the inner side of the nearest wall. There are remains of eight roof pilasters, a central fireplace, a deflector, and a ventilator shaft in the kiva. On the south side are openings in the two outer walls, one directly behind the other, so that access could have been along this passage and then up over the roof of the kiva and down into it through the smoke hole. None of the rooms in the outer two circles connect in any way with the kiva.

There are seven rooms of roughly equal size within the inner circle; an eighth “room” might be the one mentioned above, which forms part of the passage leading out to the south. These rooms do not connect with each other, and access to each of them must have been through the roof.

In the outermost circle there are 13 rooms, with another constituting the outer portion of the south passage. This is the same number of alcoves as surrounded the Great Kiva, except that in the latter case two were entranceways. Here in the Hubbard Mound there is no north alcove entranceway as there is in the Great Kiva.

In the outer circle of rooms, the first four east of the south entrance opened into each other through a lateral doorway, and the next two rooms around to the northeast also opened into each other. The following room toward the north was self-contained. Proceeding around to the west, the next five rooms all opened on each other through lateral doorways. Finally, on the southwest there is a single room not connected to any other. None of the rooms in the outer circle opened onto any in the inner circle or to the outside, except for one doorway on the west which led to the series of five interconnecting rooms. The separate rooms and the other series of connecting rooms must have been entered through the roof.

Extending southward from the tri-wall structure are two massive parallel walls made of cobblestones laid in thick mortar, and two more equally massive walls extend westward from these. There are scattered smaller walls, also of cobblestones; while we do not know their original dimensions, they suggest rectangular enclosures which may have contained house rooms of lighter construction.

The ruins contained within the Aztec Ruins National Monument constitute a complex of prehistoric remains representative of several different construction periods. Different groups of Indians seemed to have been involved at various times, and only further excavation will fully clarify their relationships.

_The Natural Scene_

Aztec Ruins National Monument is located on the Animas River in northwestern New Mexico, about 20 miles below the Colorado State line and 14 miles above the point where the Animas flows into the San Juan. The monument is on the west bank of the Animas on high ground about halfway between the river and the low-lying hills and mesas which border the river valley.

The valley, although narrow at spots, is about 2 miles wide at the point where the ruins are located. The floor of the valley is composed of fertile alluvial soil, which produces fine crops if irrigated. Today, as in prehistoric times, the population of this area is concentrated along the river. It was this permanent source of water that induced the builders of the Aztec pueblo, and in later times the white man, to settle this valley. No doubt many of the fields cultivated today are the same ones that were tilled by the original inhabitants of the area.

The valley floor and valley terraces are dotted with saltbush, rabbitbrush, greasewood, and sagebrush. The riverbanks and ditches are lined with willows and huge cottonwoods. Cattails and reeds grow in the marshy areas, and wild roses grow in the shady spots. The low hills and uplands bordering the river valley have a sparse cover of vegetation because of the small amount of rainfall. Therefore the main growth is juniper and pinyon. Typical of the Upper Sonoran Life Zone, these small, hardy trees can withstand dry periods and survive in semiarid country.

Today much of the valley is under cultivation or in pasture, and the mild and very dry climate is well suited to growing non-citrus fruit. Elevation at the monument is about 5,600 feet above sea level. Average annual rainfall is about 9½ inches; the humidity is usually very low. Temperatures will reach the mid-90’s during July and August, but evenings are cool and pleasant. Night temperatures in the 60’s are not uncommon even after the hottest summer days. Occasional afternoon thundershowers give relief from the heat during late July and August.

Spring and autumn are relatively dry seasons when the skies may remain cloudless for weeks at a time. In September a great range of temperature from night to day—as much as 45°—is noticeable.

The winters are mild. The temperature rarely drops to zero or below, and there are very few prolonged periods of cold weather. Infrequent snows are usually light, and melt quickly. Many days are warm and cloudless.

At the time that the Aztec pueblo was inhabited, no doubt a few deer, pronghorn (“antelope”), and bighorn could be found in and near the valley. Occasionally, deer still may be seen along the river to the north of Aztec Ruins. Many of the smaller animals which were familiar to the people of the Aztec pueblo are still present in the valley and may occasionally be observed in the monument. Jackrabbits, cottontails, rock squirrels, skunks, porcupines, and an occasional gray fox, all of which were probably well known to the Pueblo people, frequent the monument. Gambel’s quail and pheasants, which are both relative newcomers, may also be seen in the monument. Ducks, geese, and a few large shore birds may be seen along the river during the cooler months. Meadowlarks, robins, and numerous other birds may be seen during warmer months.

Several species of lizards and a few bullsnakes (which are harmless and beneficial and should not be disturbed) may be observed around the ruins area during summer.

_Establishment and Administration_

Aztec Ruins National Monument was established by Presidential proclamation on January 24, 1923. Most of the land was donated to the Government by the American Museum of Natural History in 1921, 1928, and 1930. In 1931 an additional 6.8 acres was purchased by the Federal Government from the heirs of H. D. Abrams who had originally owned the entire site. And in 1947, the Southwestern Monuments Association purchased the 1.2 acres containing the Hubbard Mound and presented it to the Government. The monument, now containing 27.1 acres, is administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

Created in 1849, the Department of the Interior—America’s Department of Natural Resources—is concerned with the management, conservation, and development of the Nation’s water, wildlife, mineral, forest, and park and recreational resources. It also has major responsibilities for Indian and Territorial affairs.

As the Nation’s principal conservation agency, the Department works to assure that nonrenewable resources are developed and used wisely, that park and recreational resources are conserved for the future, and that renewable resources make their full contribution to the progress, prosperity, and security of the United States—now and in the future.

A superintendent, whose address is Rt. 1, Box 101, Aztec, N. Mex., is in immediate charge of Aztec Ruins National Monument.

_Related Areas_

Other monuments in the National Park System also preserve the remains of different types of prehistoric ruins. Two of these, Mesa Verde National Park, Colo., and Chaco Canyon National Monument, N. Mex., contain remains of Indian groups which seem to have been related to those at Aztec Ruins National Monument. A third, Bandelier National Monument, N. Mex., contains remains of another type but still may be one of the areas in the Rio Grande drainage in which some of the Indians lived after they abandoned the San Juan region.

_Suggested Readings_

Howe, Sherman S. _My Story of the Aztec Ruins_, _The Basin Spokesman_, Farmington, N. Mex., 1955. Morris, E. H. _The Aztec Ruin._ Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XXVI, Part I, New York, N.Y., 1919. —— _The House of the Great Kiva at the Aztec Ruin._ Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XXVI, Part II, New York, N.Y., 1921. —— _Burials in the Aztec Ruin; The Aztec Ruin Annex._ Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XXVI, Parts III and IV, New York, N.Y., 1924. —— _Notes on Excavations in the Aztec Ruin._ Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XXVI, Part V, New York, N.Y., 1928. Reed, E. K. _The Distinctive Features and Distribution of the San Juan Anazazi Culture._ Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 2, No. 3, Albuquerque, N. Mex., 1946. Vivian, R. G. _The Hubbard Site and Other Tri-walled Structures in New Mexico and Colorado._ Archeological Research Series Number 3, National Park Service, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1959. Wheat, J. B. _Prehistoric People of the Northern Southwest._ Grand Canyon Natural History Association, Bulletin Number 12, Grand Canyon, Ariz., 1955. Wormington, H. M. _Ancient Man in North America._ Denver Museum of Natural History, Popular Series No. 4, Fourth Edition, Fully Revised, Denver, Colo., 1957.

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1963 of—665208

Transcriber’s Notes

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.