The evidences of cremation found in the inclosure at the northern end of the refuse space of Cliff Palace is conclusive. The calcined bones uncovered here were also accompanied with mortuary pottery, cloth, and wooden objects. The flexed position of the bodies of the dead occurs constantly in the earth burials, which may be explained by the almost universal belief among primitive people that when the body is returned to "mother earth" it should be placed in the posture it normally had before birth. In house burials at Spruce-tree House the bodies were sometimes extended at full length, which may be interpreted to mean that the dead were not returned to the earth mother. There was no uniformity of posture in the burials at Cliff Palace. The work at Cliff Palace was undertaken at too late a day to recover any mummified human remains, all having been previously removed. Nordenskiöld's figures and descriptions of desiccated human bodies from other Mesa Verde cliff-dwellings would apply, in a measure, to those from Cliff Palace. CONCLUSIONS While the work of excavation and repair of Cliff Palace described in the preceding pages adds nothing distinctly new to existing knowledge of cliff-dweller culture, it renders a more comprehensive idea of the conditions of life in one of the largest of these interesting ancient settlements in our Southwest. Of all the questions that present themselves after a work of this kind, perhaps the most important, from a scientific point of view, is, What relation exists between the culture of Cliff Palace and that of the neighboring pueblos? Directly across the canyon, in full view of Cliff Palace, there is a typical pueblo ruin, almost identical in character with many others scattered throughout the Southwest, some of which are known to have been inhabited in historic times by ancestors of Pueblo peoples still living. The contribution here made to the knowledge of cliff-dwelling culture will, it is hoped, shed light on the question, In what way are the cliff-dwellers and the Pueblos related? The relationship in culture of the former people of Cliff Palace to those of the large pueblo ruin on the mesa across the canyon is most instructive. How were the inhabitants of these two settlements related; and were the two sites inhabited simultaneously, or is the pueblo ruin older than Cliff Palace? So far as the culture of the inhabitants of the two is known (and knowledge of the pueblo is scant), the two settlements were synchronously inhabited, but nothing in them gives indication of the period of their occupancy. These questions can be settled only by the excavation of this pueblo or of some similar ruin on the plateau.[78] Nordenskiöld, with the data possessed by him, did not hesitate to express decided views on this point: