Archeological investigations in New Mexico, Colorado, and UtahFewkes, Jesse Walter
History
Archeological investigations in New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah
Fewkes, Jesse Walter
Colorado -- Antiquities; Indians of North America -- Antiquities; New Mexico -- Antiquities; Utah -- Antiquities
A well blazed trail passes the ruin and is lost in the distant hills.
This trail was at first mistaken for an irrigation ditch, but an
examination of its course shows that it runs up a steep hill, which
precludes such a theory. It is a section of an old Indian trail,
indications of which occur elsewhere in the State, a pathway over which
the rocks used in the construction of the ruins were transported. A
similar trail used for a like purpose is recorded near the great ruin
at Aztec, New Mexico.
RUIN B NEAR CROWN POINT
Ruin B (pl. 6, _a_, _b_), largely made up of a kiva of circular form
within a rectangular enclosure, lies near Crown Point on top of a low
plateau, back from the edge. Its name is unknown to the author, but
from its size and the character of its masonry it must formerly have
been of considerable importance. It was not, like Kin-a-a, included in
the President’s proclamation making the Chaco Canyon ruins a National
Monument. The appearance of the masonry and the structure of the
circular room, identified as a kiva, leads the author to place it in
the same class as the Chaco ruins, its nearest neighbor being Kin-a-a,
east of Crown Point. The excavation of this ruin might shed instructive
light on the extension or migration of the inhabitants of the Chaco,
after they left their homes in that canyon.
A ground plan of this ruin (fig. 6) shows that the standing walls are
rectangular and practically surround a circular room or kiva. The
walls are double, the interval between the inner wall and that of the
circular chamber being filled in with solid masonry.[11] The outer of
the two enclosing rectangular walls is separated from the inner by an
interval of about 7 feet, and is connected with it by thin partitions,
somewhat analogous to those described as connecting the two concentric
walls[12] of circular towers on the McElmo.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.—Ground plan of ruined kiva near Crown Point.]
No other walls were observed above ground in this ruin, although
small piles of stone were noticed which may have been walls of other
buildings. The reason why the walls about the kiva have been preserved
so much longer than those of neighboring secular chambers, is probably
because of the universal care exercised by man in the construction of
the walls of religious buildings.
POTTERY
[Illustration: FIG. 7.—Decorated handled cup, Black Diamond Ranch. 5½
by 4 inches.]
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