SUCCESSIVE STAGES OF CULTURE IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO. 83 



the Archeological Museum of New Mexico, to whom reference has ah-eady been made. 

 Leaving the stiff shade trees of the well-watered, grassy plaza of Santa Fe, we took the 

 narrow-gage Une of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad to the hunber piles of the village- 

 less station of Buckman on the Rio Grande itself. Crossing to the west side of the river, 

 we left the barren desert vegetation of yuccas, sagebrush, and cacti which prevails at this 

 altitude of 5,500 feet, and climbed 1,000 feet to the plateau. The road winds up over 

 variegated layers of volcanic tuff of pale pink, yellow or brilUant orange shades, inter- 

 spersed with the darker blue-black of basaltic lava flows and capped with brick-red columnar 

 tuffs. These volcanic rocks form the Pajaritan Plateau, a gently sloping, deep-soiled 

 district, sharply cut by numerous canyons formed by streams running eastward from the 

 Jemez Mountains. The plateau is a beautiful region covered with forests of juniper and 

 pihon, which at higher elevations give place to stately yellow pines set in open order with 

 stretches of sparse grass between them. The scenery is uncommonly attractive as one 

 drives slowly along, sometimes on the level, again di-opping into the hollow at the head of a 

 canon, and then climbing the slope once more to the upland, where one looks out east or 

 west at great snowy mountains. Yet in spite of the deep soil, the grass, and the trees, 

 we saw no sign of modern habitation, for except in a few insignificant spots in the bottoms 

 of the caiions where irrigation is possible, all the great plateau is too dry for cultivation 

 below a level of about 8,000 feet. 



Soon after we had reached the main toji of the plateau we came upon the first of the 

 great number of ruins which are scattered in all parts. These particular ones were cliff 

 dwellings of the usual type, caves dug in the soft volcanic rock on the side of a shallow 

 canyon, and fronted by rooms made of blocks of the same soft tufa. The number of 

 such caves and chff dwellings in this one Pajaritan Plateau is Uterally thousands. With 

 them are associated other villages of the same type as those of the Chaco Canyon. After 

 crossing several minor canyons we reached the edge of the deep Canyon of El Rito de Los 

 Frijoles, or Bean Canyon, where a precipitious cliff falls away 400 feet or more at one's 

 feet. Looking over the brink of the cUff one sees, far down at the base of a precipice, a 

 structure which at fii'st sight suggests a Greek amphitheater; it is the village of Tyuonyi, 

 excavated by the School of American Archeology at Santa Fe in the fom- seasons from 

 190S to 1911. The plan of the ruins is symmetrical, a circle shghtly flattened on the 

 north side, and containing five to eight tiers of rooms arranged hke the seats of a theater. 

 Across the flattened end where the stage would be expected, a line of rooms contains the 

 remnants of three circular chambers or "kivas," designed for religious purposes, and 

 apparently analogous to the larger circular or elliptical structures which are found so 

 commonly among the ruins of adobe and wattle villages in the Santa Cruz Valley and 

 other regions farther south. (See Plate 3, a). 



The Canyon of El Rito de Los Frijoles contains not only the main ruins of Tyuonyi and 

 several smaller ones, but also a great number of caves and chff-dwellings. Doubtless the 

 caves were at first the chief homes of the aborigines ; but as time went on and a higher stage 

 of civihzation was reached, they were used chiefly as store rooms, and the main life of 

 the households was conducted in rooms located in front of the caves and built of stone 

 plastered with mud. Often a house consisted of three tiers of rooms in front of a cave; 

 and in many cases the rooms were built one on top of another to a height of three stories. 

 Most of the rooms, hke those of all the primitive people of the Southwest as well as the 

 modern Pueblos, were entered through the roof. The small size of the rooms, not over 

 6 feet by 10 on an average, is surprising. The reason commonly assigned, however, seems 

 convincing. On the high Pajaritan Plateau the temperature often falls to 10° F. below 

 zero. The relatively dense population must quickly have used up all the available dead 

 firewood for many miles around, and it was no easy task for a primitive people, unsupphed 

 with iron tools, cut to firewood sufficient for anything more than the necessities of cooking. 



