The larger towns may have been important centers in some respects. They no doubt offered excellent trading possibilities for the men from the small towns. Perhaps a man from one of the small villages had a fine tanned buckskin that he wished to trade for jewelry. Certainly his best business opportunities would have been in one of the larger towns like Long House or Cliff Palace. When an important ceremony was held in one of the big communities, probably men flocked in from all the nearby small villages to enjoy the event. They came not only to view the public portions of the ceremony but to participate in the feasting, gossiping, trading and gambling that accompanied it. If the large communities were important to the people of the small towns it probably was only in the ways mentioned above. They did not look to them for leadership for certainly there was no union among the people. Probably there were never more than a few thousand Pueblo Indians in the Mesa Verde at any one time. They lived in hundreds of more or less independent villages. While some of these villages seem large and impressive today, they may have had little real importance in ancient times for only a small percentage of the people lived in them. The bulk of the population was in the hundreds of small towns each of which was an independent community that contained no more than a few dozen people. [Illustration: This unnamed cliff dwelling has few standing walls. There are definite indications, however, of more than twenty-five rooms.] [Illustration: Buzzard House. Although this ruin has little protection from the elements, several structures are in good condition. It was once a village of about twenty-five rooms with one or more kivas at the foot of the cliff.] [Illustration: Daniel’s House. This is one of the highest cliff dwellings of the Mesa Verde. The cowboys were unable to get into it and it was finally entered for the first time by park service men in 1915. A large collection of artifacts was ample indication that the early explorers had not been in the ruin. This probably was the cliff dwelling referred to by John Wetherill when he stated that there was one he and his brothers were never able to reach. The ladder dates from 1915, and is no longer safe for use.] [Illustration: This unnamed cliff dwelling once contained forty or forty-five rooms. It had excellent defensive possibilities for in times of trouble the upper section could have sheltered all the people of the village. Carved inscriptions in this ruin indicate that early explorers entered it as early as 1884.] THE SMALL RUINS Below are pictured four cliff dwellings that are typical of the many that contain from six to twenty rooms. Most of the ruins in this group are located high on the cliffs and often are extremely difficult to enter.