The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished RacesAllen, Emory Adams
History
The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished Races
Allen, Emory Adams
Archaeology; Indians; Prehistoric peoples
Ruins in the McElmo Cañon. Many groups of ruins are now in
localities where the people could not hope for subsistence. About
six miles to the north of these ruins, about a mile from the
McElmo, is the group of ruins here represented, which may throw
some light on the remains at Aztec Springs. The principal feature
is the triple walled tower, of which a plan is given. The tower
has a diameter of about forty-three feet, and a circumference of
about one hundred and thirty-five feet. The walls are traceable
nearly all the way around, and the space between the two outer
ones, which is about five feet, contains fourteen apartments or
cells. The walls about one of these cells were still standing at
the time of Mr. Holmes’s visit, but the cell was filled with
rubbish from the fallen walls. A door-way, opening into this
apartment, could still be seen. The inner wall was probably never
very high. It simply inclosed the estufa.
The ruins surrounding this tower consist of low, fallen walls,
scarcely traceable. The apartments number nearly one hundred, and
were generally rectangular. They are not of a uniform size, and
were certainly not arranged in regular order. Now, as Mr. Holmes
observes, it would certainly seem that, if they are the ruins of
such structures as the pueblos of the south, there would be some
regularity of size, and some systematic arrangement. He says
that, in reality, they are more like a cluster of pens, such as
are used by the Moqui tribes for keeping sheep and goats.
Since these surveys were made, Mr. Bandelier, as agent for the
Archæological Institute, has made important researches. He finds
that the small, detached houses, such as we described in the
ruined village near Jemez, are found in Arizona, with a small
court-yard or inclosure attached to them. If we understand the
description of the ruins just mentioned, and those at Apache
Springs, they are villages of these small houses and their
inclosures. In such villages the inclosures meet each other, so
as to form a checker-board of irregularly alternating houses and
courts. The houses are easily discernible from the fact of little
rubbish mounds having accumulated where they stood. Around these
parts of the wall can still be traced. This combination makes a
strong, easily defended position. Each of such villages contains
one or more open spaces of large size, but they are irregularly
located.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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