CHAPTER VII. 



THE ANCIENT PEOPLE OF SOUTHERN ARIZONA. 



We now come to far the most important tj^e of evidence as to the relation of man to 

 the climate of pre-Columbian days. The number of ruins in southern Arizona and northern 

 Sonora is remarkable. I do not here refer to the well-known cliff-dwellings, nor to the 

 ancient villages and irrigation works of the Gila Valley and its tributaries. In addition 

 to these there are literally hundreds of villages located still farther south. Most of them 

 have never been examined at all by scientists, and none have been adequately described. 

 Indeed, most people who Uve in their immediate vicinity scarcely know of their existence. 

 The reason is obvious. Usually the ruins are so insignificant in appearance that an un- 

 observant traveler might ride for a mile through a village without becoming aware of 

 the fact. (See Plate 2, d.) On the hilltops walls are sometimes found, built evidently for 

 protection; on the slopes below the fortresses little terraces for dwelling-houses or other 

 purposes are located. These have been duly noted by anthropologists, as have ancient 

 pictographs in certain passes or near the fortresses. For our present purpose, however, 

 they are of relatively slight importance. The really significant ruins are those of a great 

 number of villages located in the plains. Their sites are now reduced to barren expanses 

 strewn with ornamented bits of broken pottery, flint knives and arrowheads, stone hammers 

 and axes, mano and metate stones for grinding seeds, and in some cases rectangular Unes of 

 boulders placed erect at intervals of a foot or two, and evidently outlining the walls of 

 ancient houses. Here and there a Uttle mound a foot or two high shows where a house 

 was located. In almost every village an oval hollow surrounded by a low wall covers an 

 area 100 to 200 feet long by half as wide — not a reservoir, as one at first supposes, but 

 probably a ceremonial precinct of some sort. Aside from this nothing remains. Yet 

 there can be no question that these were once ancient villages. In many cases the ground 

 to a depth of 2 feet or more is thickly filled with bits of pottery, while the surface is so 

 strewn with similar bits that one can scarcely walk without stepping upon them. The 

 houses were probably built of branches, wattled perhaps with mud. Such houses in course 

 of time would utterly disappear, for the wood would decay, the clay used for wattling 

 would partly blow away, and the rest would be so small in amount that it would not be 

 noticeable. Where a house was more thickly wattled than usual or was built of adobe low 

 mounds now tell the tale. Other dwellings, in villages close to the mountains where stone 

 is easily available, were strengthened at the base of the walls by upright boulders which 

 still stand in their original position, so that one can see the exact form of house after house. 

 The majority of the houses, however, have disappeared, and in many cases whole villages 

 show scarcely a trace of the original dwelUngs. Yet they were no transitory villages. 

 The amount of pottery shows that they must have been filled with a busy population for 

 centuries. In certain cases, to be sure, the amount is so small as to indicate only a brief 

 occupancy. In the larger ruins, however, the amount is literally scores of times as great 

 as in modern Indian villages such as Cababi or Juivak, whose inhabitants still use pottery 

 almost entirely, and which have been inhabited for at least 50 years. It is equal to the 

 amount found in Asiatic ruins which are proved by dated records to have been inhabited 

 for hundreds of years. The ancient villages are insignificant in appearance, not from any 

 lack of traces of prolonged hmnan occupancy, but merely because of the flimsy construction 

 of the houses and the length of time since their abandonment. 



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