Casa Grande Ruin: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 289-318Mindeleff, Cosmos
History
Casa Grande Ruin: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 289-318
Mindeleff, Cosmos
Arizona -- Antiquities; Casa Grande National Monument (Ariz.); Hohokam architecture; Indians of North America -- Arizona
The character of the site occupied by the ruin indicates that it belongs
to a late date if not to the final period in the occupancy of this
region, a period when by reason of natural increase of numbers, or
perhaps aggregation of related gentes, the defense motive no longer
dominated the selection of a village site, but reliance was placed on
numbers and character of structures, and the builders felt free to
select a site with reference only to their wants as a horticultural
people. This period or stage has been reached by many of the Pueblo
tribes, although mostly within the historical period; but some of them,
the Tusayan for example, are still in a prior stage.
[Illustration: Pl. LIV: Standing Wall near Casa Grande.]
A ground plan of the ruin is shown in plate LII, and a general view in
plate LIII. The area covered and inclosed by standing walls is about 43
feet by 59 feet, but the building is not exactly rectangular, and the
common statement that it faces the cardinal points is erroneous. The
variation from the magnetic north is shown on the ground plan, which was
made in December, 1890. The building comprised three central rooms, each
approximately 10 by 24 feet, arranged side by side with the longer axes
north and south, and two other rooms, each about 9 by 35 feet, occupying
respectively the northern and southern ends of the building, and
arranged transversely across the ends of the central rooms, with the
longer axes running east and west. Except the central room, which was
three stories in height, all the rooms were two stories above the
ground. The northeastern and southeastern corners of the structure have
fallen, and large blocks of the material of which they were composed are
strewn upon the ground in the vicinity. It is probable that the
destruction of these corners prior to that of the rest of the building
was due to the disintegration of minor walls connected with them and
extending, as shown by the ridges on the ground plan, northward from the
northeastern corner and eastward from the southeastern corner. These
walls doubtless formed part of the original structure and were probably
erected with it; otherwise the corners of the main structure would not
have been torn out or strained enough to fall before the rest of the
building was affected.
It is not likely that the main building originally stood alone as at
present. On the contrary there is every reason to suppose that it was
connected with other buildings about 75 feet east of it, now marked by a
bit of standing wall shown on the map (plate LI), and probably also with
a small structure about 170 feet south of it, shown in plate LIV. These
connections seem to have been by open courts inclosed by walls and not
by continuous buildings. The court east of the ruin is well marked by
the contours and seems to have been entered by a gateway or opening at
its southeastern corner.
_Dimensions._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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