Prehistoric villages, castles, and towers of southwestern Colorado — John Shaqi
Prehistoric villages, castles, and towers of southwestern ColoradoFewkes, Jesse Walter
History
Prehistoric villages, castles, and towers of southwestern Colorado
Fewkes, Jesse Walter
Colorado -- Antiquities; Mesa Verde National Park (Colo.) -- Antiquities; Pueblo Indians -- Antiquities
As our studies are morphological, dealing with forms rather than
sites of towers, little attention need be paid to their situation on
bowlders, in cliffs, or at the bottoms of canyons. The majority of the
castellated ruins considered in the following pages are in the proposed
Hovenweep National Monument, but there are others in the main Yellow
Jacket and its other tributaries.
[44] The tower figured by Prudden (Amer. Anthrop., n. s. vol. v, no. 2,
pl. xviii, fig. 2) as a “round tower” is really semicircular, as shown
in the ground plan (fig. 14) here published.
[45] Ibid., pp. 241, 263, 273.
HOVENWEEP DISTRICT
The name Hovenweep (“Deserted Valley”) is an old one in the
nomenclature of the canyons of southwestern Colorado and formerly
(1877) was applied to the canyon now called the Yellow Jacket, but at
present is limited to one of the tributaries. The name is here used to
designate an area situated just over the Colorado State line, in Utah,
part of which it is hoped will later be reserved from the public domain
and made a monument to be called Hovenweep National Monument.
The ruined castles and towers in this district are marvelously well
preserved, considering their age and imperfect masonry. We can
determine their original appearance with no difficulty and use them
in reconstructing the possible forms of more dilapidated ruins, now
piles of débris. The best castles and towers known to the author are
localized in three canyons: (1) Square Tower Canyon, (2) Holly Canyon,
(3) Hackberry Canyon. There are, of course, other castles and towers in
the Yellow Jacket-McElmo region, but there is no locality where so many
different forms appear in equal numbers in a small area.
RUIN CANYON
The Old Bluff Road from Dolores diverges southward from that to
Monticello at Sandstone post office and passes a pile of rocks visible
from the road on the Ruin Canyon long before it reaches Square Tower
Canyon (fig. 6). This large ruin is situated on the east rim and under
it in the side of the cliff are fairly well-preserved cliff-houses.
Other ruins with high standing walls were reported in Ruin Canyon but
were not visited.
The duplication of names of canyons in this district is misleading.
Names like Ruin Canyon are naturally applied to canyons in which
there are ruins. When the author learned at Dolores of Ruin Canyon,
he supposed it was a tributary of the Yellow Jacket or McElmo, but
while the canyon known to cowboys at Dolores by this name has large
ruins on its rim, it is not the “Ruin Canyon” to which attention is
now directed. The duplication of names has led me to retain the name
Ruin Canyon for one and to suggest the name Square Tower Canyon for the
other.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.—Square Tower Canyon.]
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