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
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.
[Illustration: Figure 286.
Ground plan of ruin 8 miles north of Fossil creek.]
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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