Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 179-262Mindeleff, Cosmos
History
Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 179-262
Mindeleff, Cosmos
Pueblo Indians -- Antiquities; Verde River Valley (Ariz.) -- Antiquities
It will be noticed that the size of rooms is more varied in the
southwestern and southern clusters than in the remaining portions of the
village. In the southwestern cluster rooms measuring 8 feet by 18 or 20
are not uncommon. These occur principally in the central and
southwestern part of the cluster, while in the northern and northeastern
part the rooms are uncommonly large, one of them measuring about 40 feet
in length by nearly 15 feet in width and presenting a floor area of 600
square feet. Rooms approaching this size are more common, however, in
the northern and northwestern clusters. In these latter clusters long
narrow rooms are the exception and a number of almost square ones are
seen. The smallest room in the village is in the center of the southern
cluster, on the highest ground within the area covered by the ruin; it
measures 6 feet by 10, with a floor area of 60 square feet, as opposed
to the 600 square feet of the largest room. This small room was probably
at one time a small open space between two projecting rooms, such as are
often seen in the inhabited pueblos. Later the room on the south was
built and the front of the space was walled up in order to make a
rectangular area, thus forming the small room shown on the ground plan.
The maximum length of any room is about 40 feet, the maximum width
attained is about 20 feet, and in a general way it may be stated that
the average size of the rooms is considerably larger than that of the
rooms in the northern ruins.
From the regularity in distribution of the debris now on the ground,
it appears that the rooms of the northwestern and northern clusters,
including the eastern part of the village, were almost uniformly one
story in height, and most of the rooms in the other clusters were also
limited in height to a single story. The only places on the ground plan
where rooms of two stories might have existed are the northern and
central parts of the southwestern and southern clusters, and perhaps the
southern side of the northern cluster; the last, however, being very
doubtful.
[Illustration: Plate XVII.
GROUND PLAN OF RUINS OPPOSITE VERDE.]
In the scarcity of detached rooms or small clusters the plan of this
village strongly resembles the ground plan of Zuñi. Only three detached
rooms are seen in the plan. One of these, situated in the main or
central court, has already been referred to as probably the remains of a
kiva or sacred chamber. Another single room occurs outside of the
village, near its southwestern corner. This was probably a dwelling
room, for a kiva would hardly be located in this place. The third room
is found also outside the village and at its southeastern corner. The
space inclosed within the walls of this room measured about 7 feet by 4
and the lines of wall are at an acute angle with the wall lines of the
village. This structure is anomalous, and its purpose is not clear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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