Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado Part 4

Of all the ruins in Mesa Verde National Park only 28 have been named and only 30 excavated. No survey of the unexcavated sites has been made, and the total number of ruins is unknown. Several hundred cliff dwellings have been discovered, and new ones will probably be found in the more remote canyons. The surface pueblos outnumber the cliff dwellings, and a careful search would reveal many that are now hidden by a thick growth of underbrush. The earth lodges of the Late Basket Makers are so common that hundreds will be brought to light by careful search. Dozens of them can be located in a half-hour walk over any of the mesas.

DATES FOR MESA VERDE RUINS ESTABLISHED BY THE TREE-RING CHRONOLOGY[2]

Dr. A. E. Dougla.s.s, director of Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, established the tree-ring chronology for dating Southwestern ruins. This chronology is based upon the facts that solar changes affect our weather and weather in turn the trees of the arid Southwest, as else-where, and that such affects are recorded in the variation of tree-ring growth during wet and dry years. Thus the tree-ring record of living trees has been extended into the past by arranging beams from historic pueblos in their proper sequence so that the inner rings of one match the outer rings of its predecessor, and in turn match the rings of the living trees. After completing the series from living trees and pueblos, of known dates, the record has been continued through the cross-sections of prehistoric beams of fir and pine that were chopped with the stone axes. The continuation of this chronology is only limited by the finding of earlier beams than those used in the established chronology.

The National Geographic Society tree-ring expedition took, in all, 49 beam sections from ruins within Mesa Verde National Park. During 1932 and 1933 further tree-ring research was carried on in this area and additional dates have been secured. Presuming that the year of cutting the timber was the year of actual use in construction, the following dates have been established for the major cliff dwellings:

Mug House, A. D. 1066 Long House, A. D. 1204-11 Cliff Palace, A. D. 1073-1273 Square Tower House, A. D. 1204-46 Oak Tree House, A. D. 1112-84 Spruce Tree House, A. D. 1230-74 Spring House, A. D. 1115 New Fire House, A. D. 1259 Hemenway House, A. D. 1171 Ruin No. 16, A. D. 1261 Balcony House, A. D. 1190-1272 Buzzard House, A. D. 1273

Since considerable tree-ring material from these ruins remains yet to be examined, the dates given above are not final. On the basis of present evidence, Cliff Palace, the largest and most complex cliff house within the park, shows an occupancy of 200 years.

It is an interesting fact that all of the dates fall just short of the beginning of the great drought, which the tree-ring chronology shows commenced in 1276 and extended to 1299, a period of 24 years.

DISCOVERIES OF RECENT YEARS

In 1923 Roy Henderson and A. B. Hardin discovered the largest and finest watchtower that had yet been found. The tower was circular, 25 feet in height and 11 feet in diameter. Loopholes at various levels commanded the approach from every exposed quarter.

During the winter of 1924 the north refuse s.p.a.ce of Spruce Tree House was excavated. Two child burials were found, one partially mummified, the other skeletal only. With one was found a mug, a ladle, a digging stick, and two ring baskets that had held food. Several corrugated jars were found, together with miscellaneous material. A layer of turkey droppings a foot thick indicated the s.p.a.ce had been used as a turkey pen.

During January and February of 1926, when snow was available as a water supply, excavations were carried on in Step House Cave, by Superintendent Jesse L. Nusbaum. In 1891 Nordenskiold had found many fine burials in this cave and it had suffered greatly from pothunting.

The cliff dweller refuse at the south end of the cave had not been thoroughly cleaned out, however, and it was under this layer of trash that the important discovery was made. Three of the Late Basket Maker pit houses were found, giving the first evidence that these people had used the caves before the cliff dwellers. Very few artifacts were found because of the earlier pothunting. In 1926 also a low, deep cave opposite Fire Temple was excavated, and a small amount of Basket Maker material found. Most interesting were two tapered cylinders of crystallized salt that still bore the imprint of the molder's hands.

While bracing a slipping boulder in Cliff Palace, Fred Jeep found, in 1916, a sandal of the Early Basket Maker type that indicates a former occupancy of the cave by the first group of Agricultural Indians in this region.

In 1927 Bone Awl House was excavated. A series of unusually fine bone awls was found that suggested the name for the ruin. Much miscellaneous material was also found. Another small cliff dwelling nearby was cleaned out. One baby mummy and an adult burial were found, as well as some pottery and bone and stone tools. This ruin is reached by a spectacular series of 104 footholds that the cliff dwellers had cut in the almost perpendicular canyon wall.

During March of 1928 and the winter of 1929 restricted excavations were conducted in ruins 11 to 19, inclusive, on the west side of Wetherill Mesa.

Several burials were found, all in poor condition because of dampness.

Outstanding was an unusual bird pendant of hemat.i.te with crystal eyes set into drilled sockets with pinon gum. Forty-two bowls were reconstructed from the sherds found.

In the summer of 1929 Mr. and Mrs. Harold S. Gladwin and a.s.sociates of Gila Pueblo, Globe, Ariz., a.s.sisted by Deric Nusbaum, conducted an archeological survey of small-house ruins on Chapin Mesa and in the canyon heads along the North Rim. The survey covered 250 sites. One hundred sherds were collected from each site and studied to identify the pottery types, the sequence of their development, and their relationship to pottery types of other southwestern archeological areas.

The forest fire of 1934 revealed many hitherto unknown ruins. Two splendid watchtowers were found on the west cliff of Rock Canyon. In a small area at the head of Long Canyon 10 new Early Pueblo ruins were located and no doubt scores of others will be found upon more careful search. In the heads of the small canyons many dams and terraces were noted.

In the stabilization program that was carried on in 1934-35 a number of artifacts were found. A certain amount of debris had to be moved in order that the weakened walls and slipping foundations might be strengthened and varied finds resulted. Axes, bone awls, sandals, pottery, planting sticks, and similar articles were most common, but a few burials were also found.

In August 1934 the undisturbed skeleton of an old woman was found on the bare floor of a small ruin just across the canyon from the public campgrounds. This skeleton, of particular importance because of fusion of the spinal column, had apparently remained exposed and undisturbed through more than seven centuries.

Because of the fact that no detailed, comprehensive survey has ever been made of the archeological resources of the park, the findings of new ruins, artifacts, and human remains are more or less regularly reported at the park museum.

PREHISTORIC INHABITANTS OF THE MESA VERDE

The so-called "Mesa Verde cliff dwellers" were not the first of the prehistoric southwestern cultures, nor were they the first human occupants of the natural caves that abound in the area of the park.

Centuries before the cliff-dweller culture with its complex social organizations, agriculture, and highly developed arts of masonry, textiles, and ceramics, it is thought that small groups of primitive Mongoloid hunters crossed from the north-eastern peninsula of Asia to the western coast of Alaska. The Bering Strait, with but 60 miles of water travel, offered the safest and easiest route.

Just when these migrations to the east had their origin and how long they continued cannot definitely be said, but it is thought the earliest Mongoloid hunters were in northwestern America about twelve to fifteen thousand years ago. When Columbus "discovered" America the continent was inhabited from Alaska to the Strait of Magellan and from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts.

For perhaps several thousand years following the first migrations little of great significance developed. There undoubtedly was cultural progress, but it was slow, and in the long perspective of time its evidences are hardly discernible. With the knowledge and benefits of agriculture, which was probably developed first in Mexico, hunting gave way to husbandry, nomadism to sedentary life, and there followed a great period of change and advancement. The introduction of corn or Indian maize into what is now the southwestern United States may be called the antecedent condition for all advanced cultures of the area.

Evidence has not yet been established that the first of the maize-growing Indians of the Southwest were permanent occupants of the Mesa Verde. Nevertheless, in the Cliff Palace cave, well below the horizon or floor level of the cliff dwellers, archeologists have found a yucca fiber sandal of a distinctive type which is a.s.sociated only with the first agricultural civilization. From this evidence it would be reasonable to a.s.sume that the caves of Mesa Verde at least offered temporary shelter, if not permanent homes, to the people of this period.

The earliest culture so far definitely identified as having permanent habitation on the Mesa Verde is the Basket Maker III or the Second Agricultural Basket Maker first found in Step House cave on the west side of the park below the debris of the latter cliff-house occupation. Recent excavations and archeological surveys furnish conclusive evidence that the second agricultural people were most numerous in the area now included in this national park, and they constructed their roughly circular subterranean rooms not only in the sandy floor of the caves but also in the red soil on the comparatively level mesas separating the numerous canyons. Late Basket Maker House A, formerly known as Earth Lodge A, is an example of this early type of structure. Up to this time excavations have failed to uncover a single house structure of this type not destroyed by fire.

These early inhabitants made basketry, excelled in the art of weaving, and it is believed were the first of the southwestern cultures to invent fired pottery. The course of this invention can be traced from the crude sun-dried vessel tempered with shredded cedar bark to the properly tempered and durable fired vessel.

Then followed a long development in house structure, differing materially from this earlier type. Horizontal masonry replaced the cruder attempts of house-wall construction; rectangular or squarish forms replaced the somewhat circular earlier type; and gradually the single-room structures were grouped into ever-enlarging units which a.s.sumed varying forms of arrangement as the development progressed.

The art of pottery making improved concurrently with the more complex house structure. This later period represents the intermediate era of development from the crude Late Basket Maker dwellings to the remarkable structures of the "Cliff House Culture."

During this period of transition new people penetrated the area. The Basket Makers throughout the course of their development were consistently a long-headed group. The appearance of an alien group is recorded through the finding of skeletons with broad or round skulls and a deformed occiput. These new people, the Pueblos, took over, changed, and adapted to their own needs the material culture of the earlier inhabitants.

The Pueblos were not content with the crude buildings and earth lodges that sufficed as homes during the earlier periods. For their habitations they shaped stones into regular forms, sometimes ornamenting them with designs, and laid them in mud mortar, one on another. Their masonry has resisted the destructive forces of the elements for centuries.

The arrangement of houses in a cliff dwelling the size of Cliff Palace is characteristic and is intimately a.s.sociated with the distribution of the social divisions of its former inhabitants.

The population was composed of a number of units, possibly clans, each of which had its more or less distinct social organization, as indicated in the arrangement of the rooms. The rooms occupied by a clan were not necessarily connected, and generally neighboring rooms were distinguished from one another by their uses. Thus, each clan had its men's room, which is called the "kiva." Each clan had also a number of rooms, which may be styled the living rooms, and other enclosures for granaries. The corn was ground into meal in another room containing the metate set in a stone bin or trough. Sometimes the rooms had fireplaces, although these were generally in the plazas or on the housetops. All these different rooms, taken together, const.i.tuted the houses that belonged to one clan.

The conviction that each kiva denotes a distinct social unit, as a clan or a family, is supported by a general similarity in the masonry of the kiva walls and that of adjacent houses ascribed to the same clan. From the number of these rooms it would appear that there were at least 23 social units or clans in Cliff Palace.

Apparently there is no uniformity or prearranged plan in the distribution of the kivas. As religious belief and custom prescribed that these rooms should be subterranean, the greatest number were placed in front of the rectangular buildings where it was easiest to construct them. When necessary, because of limited s.p.a.ce or other conditions, kivas were also built far back in the cave and enclosed by a double wall of masonry, with the walls being s.p.a.ced about two and a half to three feet apart. The section between the walls was then backfilled with earth or rubble to the level of the kiva roof. In that way the ceremonial structure was artificially made subterranean, as their beliefs required.

In addition to their ability as architects and masons, the cliff dwellers excelled in the art of pottery making and as agriculturists.

Their decorated pottery--a black design on pearly white background--will compare favorably with pottery of the other cultures of the prehistoric Southwest.

As their sense of beauty was keen, their art, though primitive, was true; rarely realistic, generally symbolic. Their decoration of cotton fabrics and ceramic work might be called beautiful, even when judged by our own standards. They fashioned axes, spear points, and rude tools of stone; they wove sandals, and made attractive basketry.

The staple product of the cliff dwellers was corn; they also planted beans and squash. This limited selection was perhaps augmented by pinon nuts, yucca fruit, and other indigenous products found in abundance. Nevertheless, successful agriculture on the semiarid plateau of the Mesa Verde must have been dependent upon hard work and diligent efforts. Without running streams irrigation was impossible and success depended upon the ability of the farmer to save the crop through the dry period of June and early July.

Rain at the right time was the all-important problem, and so confidently did they believe that they were dependent upon the G.o.ds to make the rain fall and the corn grow that their prayers for rain probably developed into their most important ceremonies.

From Dr. A. E. Dougla.s.s's tree-ring chronology the earliest date so far established for the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings is 1066 A.D. and the latest date 1274 A.D. While it should not be imagined that these are the all-inclusive dates representing the total time of the cliff-dweller culture, it is interesting to note that this same tree-ring story tells us that a great drought commenced in 1276 and extended for a 24-year period to 1299. It may logically be presumed that the prehistoric population was gradually forced to withdraw from the area as the drought continued and to establish itself near more favorable sources of water supply.

The so-called "Aztec ruin", which is situated on the banks of the Animas River in northwestern New Mexico, substantiates this hypothesis of the voluntary desertion of the cliff dwellings. In this ruin is found unmistakable evidence of a secondary occupation which has been definitely identified as a Mesa Verde settlement.

It is thought that certain of the present-day Pueblo Indians are descendants, in part at least, of the cliff dwellers. Many of these Indian towns or pueblos still survive in the States of New Mexico and Arizona, the least modified of which are the villages of the Hopi, situated not far from the Grand Canyon National Park.