Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado Part 3

Sun Temple is believed to be among the latest constructed of all the aboriginal buildings in the park, probably contemporaneous with late building activities in Balcony House, Spruce Tree House, and Cliff Palace.

Because of the absence of timbers or roof beams it is impossible to tell when Sun Temple was begun, how long it took for its construction, or when it was deserted. There are indications that its walls may never have been completed, and from the amount of fallen stones there can hardly be a doubt that when it was abandoned they had been carried up in some places at least 6 feet above their present level. The top of the wall had been worn down at any rate 6 feet in the interval between the time it was abandoned and the date of excavation of the mound. No one can tell the length of this interval in years.

We have, however, knowledge of the lapse of time, because the mound had acc.u.mulated enough soil on its surface to support growth of large trees. Near the summit of the highest wall in the annex there grew a juniper tree of great antiquity, alive and vigorous when excavation work was begun. This tree undoubtedly sprouted after the desertion of the building and grew after a mound had developed from fallen walls.

Its roots penetrated into the adjacent rooms and derived nourishment from the soil filling them.

Necessarily, when these roots were cut off the tree was killed. It was then cut off about a foot above the ground, the stump remaining. A cross section of this stump was examined by Gordon Parker, supervisor of the Montezuma National Forest, who found that it had 360 annual rings without allowing for decayed heartwood which would add a few more years to its age.

It is not improbable that this tree began to grow on the top of the Sun Temple mound shortly after the year 1540, when Coronado first entered New Mexico. How long an interval elapsed for crumbling walls to form the mound in which it grew, and how much earlier the foundations of the ruined walls were laid, no one can tell. A conservative guess of 350 years for the interval between construction and the time the cedar began to sprout would carry the antiquity of Sun Temple back to about 1200 A.D.

UNITY OF CONSTRUCTION

The argument that appeals most strongly to many in supporting the theory that Sun Temple was a ceremonial building is the unity shown in its construction. A preconceived plan existed in the minds of the builders before they began work on the main building. Sun Temple was not constructed haphazardly, nor was its form due to addition of one clan after another, each adding rooms to a preexisting nucleus. There is no indication of patching one building to another, so evident at Cliff Palace and other large cliff dwellings. The construction of the recess in the south wall, situated exactly, to an inch, midway in its length, shows it was planned from the beginning.

We can hardly believe that one clan could have been numerous enough to construct a house so large and ma.s.sive. Its walls are too extensive; the work of dressing the stones too great. The construction of Sun Temple presumably represents the cooperative efforts of many clans from adjacent cliff dwellings uniting in a common purpose. Such a united effort represents a higher state of sociological development than a loosely connected population of a cliff dwelling.

BUILDERS

On the theory that this building was erected by people from several neighboring cliff dwellings for ceremonies held in common, we may suppose that the builders came daily from their dwellings in Cliff Palace and other houses and returned at night, after they had finished work, to their homes. The trails down the sides of the cliffs which the workmen used are still to be seen. The place was frequented by many people, but there is no evidence that any one clan dwelt near this mysterious building during its construction.

The argument that cliff dwellers in the neighborhood built Sun Temple and that incoming aliens had nothing to do with its construction seems very strong. The architectural differences between it and Cliff Palace are not objections, for the architectural form of Sun Temple may be regarded as a repet.i.tion, in the open, of a form of building that developed in a cliff house; the rounded north wall conforms with the rear of a cave and the straight south wall reproduces the front of a cliff dwelling. The recess midway in the south wall of Sun Temple could be likened without forcing the comparison to a similar recess which occurs at the main entrance into Cliff Palace.

Sun Temple was not built by an alien people, but by the cliff dwellers as a specialized building mainly for religious purposes, and, so far as known, is the first of its type recognized in the Mesa Verde area.

NEW FIRE-HOUSE GROUP

FIRE TEMPLE

Fire Temple is one of the most remarkable cliff houses in the park, if not in the whole Southwest. It is situated in a shallow cave in the north wall of Fewkes Canyon, near its head, and can readily be seen from the road along the southwest rim of the canyon. This ruin was formerly called Painted House, but when it was excavated in May 1920 evidence was obtained that it was a specialized building and not a habitation. The facts brought to light point to the theory that it was consecrated to the fire cult, one of the most ancient forms of worship.

The ruin is rectangular in form, almost completely filling the whole of its shallow cave, and the walls of the rooms extend to the roof. A ground plan shows a central court 50 feet long and about 25 feet broad, flanked at each end with ma.s.sive-walled buildings two stories high. The walls of these rooms are well constructed, plastered red and white within and on the side turned to the court. The white plaster is adorned with symbolic figures. The beams used in the construction of the ceiling of the lower room are missing, but the walls show clearly that the structure was formerly two stories high. No beams were used in the construction of the floors, the lower story having been filled in with fragments of rocks on which was plastered a good adobe floor.

The court or plaza was bounded by a low wall on the south side, the buildings enclosing the east and west ends, where there was a banquette. The north side of the court was formed by the solid rocks of the cliff, but on the lower part a narrow masonry wall had been laid up about head high, projecting from the cliff a foot and less on the top. The wall was formerly plastered red below and white above, triangular figures and zigzag markings recalling symbols of lightning on the line of the junction of the red and white surfaces.

In the center of the court on a well-hardened adobe floor there is a circular walled fire pit containing an abundance of ashes, and on either side of it are foundations of small rectangular structures. The function of the rectangular enclosures, lying one on each side of the fire pit, is unknown. The middle room of the lowest tier of rooms just west of the main court has a number of painted symbols and zoormorphic figures upon its walls. These paintings, in red, still remain in a fair state of preservation, and consist of five symbols, supposedly of fire, and many pictures of mountain sheep and other animals.

Just west of Fire Temple there is a group of rooms which were evidently habitations, since household utensils were found in them.

One of these rooms has in the floor a vertical shaft which opens outside the house walls like a ventilator. The former use of this structure is unknown. Although the Fire Temple was not inhabited, there were undoubtedly dwellings nearby.

NEW FIRE HOUSE

A hundred feet east of the Fire Temple there are two low caves, one above the other. This cliff dwelling is called New Fire House. The rooms in the lower cave were fitted for habitation, consisting of two, possibly three, circular ceremonial rooms and a few secular rooms; but the upper cave is dest.i.tute of the former. The large rooms of the upper house look like granaries for the storage of provisions, although possibly they also were inhabited. In the rear of the large rooms identified as granaries was found a small room with a well-preserved human skeleton accompanied with mortuary pottery. One of these mortuary offerings is a fine mug made of black and white ware beautifully decorated. In the rear of the cave were three well-constructed grinding bins, their metates still in place.

The upper house is now approached from the lower by foot holes in the cliff and a ladder. Evidences of a secondary occupation of one of the kivas in the lower house appear in a wall of crude masonry without mortar, part of a rectangular room built diagonally across the kiva.

The plastering on the rear walls of the lower house is particularly well preserved. One of the kivas, has, in place of a deflector and ventilator shaft, a small rectangular walled enclosure surrounded by a wall, recalling structures on the floor of the kivas of Sun Temple.

The meaning of this departure from the prescribed form of ventilator is not apparent.

CEDAR TREE TOWER

Hidden in the timber about one-half mile east of the main entrance highway, and 1 mile north of Park Headquarters, stands a prehistoric tower. This ruin has been named Cedar Tree Tower because of the ancient juniper tree that grows adjacent to the north wall. The excavation of the tower and the area about its base led to the discovery that although it appeared to stand alone there were two subterranean rooms connected with its base. The larger of these rooms is a kiva, typical of the Mesa Verde cliff dwelling. Communication between kiva and tower was by means of a subterranean pa.s.sage. This pa.s.sage bifurcates, one branch opening through the tower floor, the other into a small square room. In the middle of the solid rock floor of the tower a circular hole, or _sipapu_, symbolic of the entrance to the underworld, had been drilled.

The masonry is excellent and the ma.s.sive character and workmanship of the walls indicate some important use. No living rooms were found adjacent to the tower. The walls of the tower are uniformly two feet in width and they still stand to the height of 12 feet.

FAR VIEW HOUSE, A MESA VERDE PUEBLO

Archeological investigations have shown that the inhabitants of the Mesa Verde built compact pueblo-style structures on the open mesa land separating the deep canyons. Lacking natural protection of the caves and cliffs of the canyons, a closely knit and compact structure was necessary for defensive purposes. Not having to conform to the irregular contours of the cave as in the cliff-house type, the structure a.s.sumed a roughly rectangular shape in the open, with the kivas within protected by the adjacent outside living and storage rooms. The roofed-over kivas formed small open courts within the higher outside walls. Structurally, there is but little difference between the cliff house and the pueblo; undoubtedly they belong to the same culture and period.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MESA VERDE SURFACE RUIN. FAR VIEW HOUSE]

Four and a half miles north of Spruce Tree Camp the park road pa.s.ses near 16 major and many minor mounds. This is the so-called Mummy Lake group, a misnomer, since the walled depression at the crest of the slope above the group was never used as a reservoir, also since mummies are never found where the least dampness occurs. In the spring of the year water is still conducted to the depression by the drainage ditches which the early cowmen in the park constructed in their efforts to impound sufficient water for their stock.

The first unit of this group to be excavated was named Far View House because of the wonderful panorama of diversified terrain that is visible in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona from the walls of the ruin. At the beginning of the work, this mound appeared very much as any of the other adjacent major mounds, no sign of standing wall appearing above the even contour of the ruin. Heavy growths of sagebrush covered the whole area. Three months' time was devoted to the excavation in revealing the rectangular pueblo, 100 by 113 feet in size, now seen. The slow crumbling of the heavy dirt-covered roofs and the walls, together with the annual deposit of wind-blown sand from the San Juan country early each spring, gradually filled the rooms to the level of the standing walls, after which destructive elements and forces can little change the contour of any ruin.

The external features of Far View House are apparent as we approach its walls; mounting to the top of the highest wall we can best observe the general plan. This pueblo is rectangular in shape, consisting of concentrated rooms with a court surrounded by a wall annexed to the south side. On its southeast corner, a little less than 100 feet away, lies the cemetery from which have been taken a number of skeletons with their offerings of food bowls and other objects, such as was the custom of these people to deposit in the graves of their dead.

At its highest point on the north wall the pueblo had three stories, but on the southern side there was but a single story. This building was terraced, one tier of rooms above another. In the corner of the interior of the highest room may still be seen the ancient fireplaces and stones for grinding corn, set in their original positions as used by the former inhabitants. There are no external windows or pa.s.sages, except on the south side where midway in length is a recess in which was placed a ladder in order to be hidden from view. The inhabitants evidently used the roof of the lowest terrace for many occupations. A bird's-eye view shows that all the rooms, now roofless, fall into two groups.

In the center of this ma.s.s of rooms is a kiva 32 feet in diameter, and around it are three smaller kivas. The size of the large kiva is noteworthy. In the cliff dwellings the kivas were necessarily small because of the limited floor s.p.a.ce, but in the surface villages, where unlimited s.p.a.ce was available, they were often large. This arrangement of one large kiva and several small ones is common. It might indicate that each clan had a small kiva of its own but that in the major ceremonies, when all of the clans worked together, the large ceremonial room was used. The structural details of the large kiva are identical with those of the smaller ones. The only variation is in the size.

The rooms surrounding these circular ones vary somewhat in form but are, as a rule, rectangular, the shapes of those near the kivas being triangular to fill the necessary s.p.a.ces. The contents of the rectangular rooms show that they were living rooms. Artifacts were found and indications of various industries as well as marks of smoke from their fireplaces appear on the walls. From the nature of this evidence there is no doubt that Far View House was once inhabited by the people living the same way as those who used the cliff dwellings.

The court added to the pueblo on its south side is enclosed by a low wall. Here were probably performed, in ancient times, the many religious dances and festivals.

Far View House is but one of the 16 pueblos in the Mummy Lake group, and at the period of maximum development could have housed a large population. To the north and east, where the two branches of Soda Canyon join, another large village or group has been located, and one can almost trace the trail across the west fork of Soda Canyon to the neighboring village and imagine the dusky visitors going from one to the other in prehistoric times. Each narrow tonguelike mesa of the Mesa Verde has its ruins of either isolated pueblo structures, or adjacent groups, denoting the widespread distribution of the mesa pueblo builders.

Pottery is the best index as to the chronological sequence of the ruins in the Southwest, and in examining the pottery of some of the mesa-type pueblos it is found that some contain pottery antedating that of the cliff-house culture, while others contain similar types.

Undoubtedly, they were simultaneously inhabited, in part at least, and the transitory period was of long duration; but the period in prehistoric time when they were built and later deserted has not been determined. We cannot say from data now at hand when this took place, doc.u.mentary history affording no help.

The aborigines who lived near these ruins when discovered in 1874 were Utes, a Shoshonean stock who disclaimed all knowledge of the people who constructed these buildings. They avoided them as uncanny and even now can only with difficulty be induced to enter them. They have dim legends of conflicts between the earliest Utes and cliff dwellers.

Unfortunately, however, such legendary evidence is not reliable, as the general mythology of these people has been much distorted due to foreign contacts and the pa.s.sage of time.

OTHER RUINS NEAR FAR VIEW HOUSE

During the season of 1922 excavation and repair work in the vicinity of Far View House was carried on simultaneously. Among the ruins excavated were Pipe Shrine House, One Clan House, Far View Tower, and Megalithic House.

EARTH LODGE A

In 1922 one of the Late Basket Maker pit houses was excavated on the mesa above Square Tower House. This structure is known as Earth Lodge A. Although it once had a mud and pole roof almost as high as a man's head, nothing now remains but the underground part of the house. None of these pit houses have ever been found that have not been burned, and only a few pieces of charcoal remain as evidence of the former roof. The pit is 30 inches deep and 18 feet in diameter. In the center is a fire pit. In the floor are also four holes, forming a large square, in which the roof supports once stood. The walls of the pit were formerly plastered with a thick layer of mud, but only a few patches of this remain. Around the edge of the room, at floor level, were a number of small storage bins made of thin stone slabs. No side entrance was located during excavation. In some of the pit houses evidence has shown that entrance was often made by means of a ladder through the smokehole in the roof.

This was a typical home of the Lake Basket Makers who were living in this region when the Pueblo Indians arrived about 700 A. D. These pit houses pa.s.sed out of existence as soon as the masonry wall was perfected.

UNEXCAVATED RUINS