Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1917 — NEW CLIFF DWELLINGS UNEARTHED [ARTICLE]

NEW CLIFF DWELLINGS UNEARTHED

Dr. J. Walter Fewkes. ethnologist in the Smithsonian Bureau can who returned recently from his field work in the Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, reports that his work has revealed for the first time a new type of prehistoric building possibly over 600 years oid—a pueblo, commonly defined as a terraced community building, not attached to a cliff but constructed in the open. During the-past few .years, the Smithsonian institution, dir co-operalton with ~ the department of the interior, lias directed the excavation and repair of several prehistoric ruins in the Mesa £ Verde national park, among them- the “Sun Temple,” excavated by Doctor Fewkes last year, which proved a unique example of aboriginal .building specialized for religious purposes, and “Spruce Tree House.” ami “Cliff" Palace chafacteriktic cliff dwellings of the culture <>f the early dwellers. Th»* building excavated last summer fwiiiß one of whii* is known asthe Mommy Lake group of mounds which might be termed a type locality. for it st-ems representative of a considerable region. According to Doctor Fewkes the area now comprising Arizona, j Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico was inhabited, In prehistoric times, by Indians similar to those of any other regian of North America, but their dwellings were very different. This ealque territory, therefore bears the mi»e “fheblb CulfUfeltrea.” . It is the

only aboriginal culture area where builders have determined the name, being distinguished from all others mainly by architectural characteristics. although the agricultural fact that these forebears of th<* American Indian possessed maize or Indian corn aids in establishing their peculiarities. “The immigrant clans that first peopled the . Southwest built neither cliff dwellings nor pueblos,” says Doctor Fewkes, “consequently this style of dwelling originated exactly where we now find them. “When mail first entered the Southwest he knew . little of the advantages of stone as a building material, for he built his but of inudT'afid stteks, or possibly skins of animals. The North American Indian became a stone ma* son as a result of a life in cliffs, and “nowhere outside of the Southwest were buildings constructed of stone by the aborigines of the section north-of Mexico. The prehistQriC ntlSOnry 4q. this region is a development which oCcurred Before the advent of the white man. And yet, no European ever saw an inhabited cliff dwelling on the Mesji Verde, ahd no article of European manufacture has- ever been found in the undisturbed debris of the rooms.” All of which shows that these early dwellings were abandoned before the Spanish conquest. Concerning the new type of dwelling just unearthed from Its deep cover of earth, rock, debris, and sagebrush,

Doctor Fewkes says that there is every reason to believe that there were formerly as many buildings of this kind- as there were cliff dwellings in the canyons, practically about one hundred of them. They seem to have been arranged in groups surrounding or near Mummy lake, an artificial depression surrounded , by an encircling ridge or wall, and undoubtedly used as a reservoir both for drinking and Irrigation waters. The mound chosen to be excavated stands near the Government road at the southwest corner of the- group area, and only a few steps from the rim of Soda canyon, "It might well 'lreCcatted ‘Far View House,’ ” says the excavator, “since the southern outlook is very fine, and from the upper rooms four states, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, may be seen.” When the building was excavated forty domiciliary rooms and four circular, ceremonial kivas -were =; found on the ground floor. The forms were mainly two stories In height, the raftters of the lower floors forming the beams for the .second, and extending along the north, east and west sides of the main building. A row of rooms to she north of one kiva-shows evidences of a third story, which would probably have brought the original number of rooms to over fifty. To the south is a great court supposed to have been a dance plaza, and still inclosed by the remnants of a wall.