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
The exact dimensions of Fire House (pl. 1) can be obtained only by
excavation, but it is approximately 94 by 79 feet in greater and lesser
diameter. Some parts of the outside wall are now 10 feet high, and its
thickness averages 3 feet, but if the stones accumulated about its
base were removed the height would be 4 or 5 feet greater. There are
evidences of an external passage-way through the outer wall indicating
a central court. Within the enclosure there are many indications of
rooms some of which appear to be circular, but the interior is so
filled with fallen walls that an accurate ground plan could not be
drawn without extensive excavation. The stones forming the wall are,
as a rule, cubical blocks, well dressed and accurately fitted, showing
good masonry.
Two of the largest of the wall stones are 5 feet long and 3 feet wide,
with an estimated thickness of 2 feet. As it would take several men
to carry one of these stones from the quarry to its place in the wall,
they might be called megaliths.
The fine spring at the base of the cliff below Fire House was evidently
used by the inhabitants for drinking water, and the trail from here to
a gateway in the outer wall is still well marked. As one climbs from
the spring to the top of the plateau the way passes between the cliff
and a flat stone set on edge and pierced with a hole about 5 feet above
the pathway. This stone was evidently a means of defense; behind it the
warriors may have stood peering down upon their enemies through this
orifice. Near it are pictographs of unknown meaning.
The circular form of Fire House (fig. 1) and its well-constructed
surrounding wall are more characteristic of eastern than of western
pueblo masonry. This round type[4] is found from southern Colorado on
the north to the neighborhood of the Zuñi settlements on the south; it
has not been reported from the region on both banks of the Rio Grande.
Roughly speaking, circular ruins correspond, in their distribution,
with a line extending north-south midway between the eastern and
western sections of the pueblo area—a limitation that can hardly be
regarded as fortuitous. Its meaning we may not be able to correctly
interpret, but the fact calls for an explanation. The type is old, the
modern pueblos having abandoned this form. The area where circular
ruins occur corresponds, in a way, to that inhabited in part by the
modern Keres, none of whom, however, now dwell in circular towns.
Provisionally we shall consider the Keresan pueblos as the nearest of
all descendants of those who once inhabited villages of circular or
oval form, a generalization substantiated by the existence of words of
Keres language in many old ceremonies among all the pueblos.
There is a sharp line of demarcation between the zone of circular ruins
and that inhabited by the pueblos along the Rio Grande, but on the
western border these circular buildings extend as far west as the Hopi
country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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