SUCCESSIVE STAGES OF CULTURE IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO. 77 



the base of the cliffs. Nevertheless there are several hollows into which flood water flows 

 and where fields of corn are rudely fenced off by the Navajos. No one except a white 

 trader, however, lives here permanently, which is not surprising, since the total area of 

 the fields within sight of the road is probably not more than 30 acres. Yet here, as in so 

 many other places, the people of long ago were fairly numerous. Without deviating from 

 the road one passes ruins in four places, the total number of houses being about 10 and of 

 rooms 70, which would provide accommodation for about 50 people. These houses were of 

 a different sort from those that we have investigated in the south. They were communal 

 dwellings made of rough stones and probably plastered with mud, but now reduced to low 

 and almost invisible mounds. To-day the only permanent supply of water is in Smith's 

 well, 12 feet deep. The lake often dries up for sbc months at a time, and any reservoirs that 

 the former inhabitants could have built would scarcely have been more permanent. The 

 ruins are too small to prove anything when taken by themselves. They are worth men- 

 tioning simply because they show how numerous are the traces of ancient habitations and 

 because they bear so marked an appearance of great age. 



North or northwest of the continental divide a large number of valleys break through 

 the white and brown chffs, which correspond to the red cliffs of the southern side, and 

 debouche upon a vast roUing plateau like that upon which Thoreau is located. Here, just 

 as on the other side, the mouth of each canyon forms a center around which clusters a group 

 of ruins. For instance, at the mouth of Satan's Canyon, down which runs the road to the 

 main center of Chaco Canyon at Puelilo Bonita, the most prominent feature of the monot- 

 onous landscape, as one looks out from the mouth of the valley, is the circular stone tower of 

 Pueblo Viejo or Kin Ya'a, 30 feet high and 15 in diameter. Four stories can still be counted 

 in it, and not many years ago there are said to have been five, although the upper parts 

 have now fallen. The tower rises from a stone fort or sanctuary, about 150 by 80 feet in 

 size. The whole structure is built of blocks of brown sandstone which have been broken 

 and smoothed with surprising accuracy, considering that the ancient inhabitants did not 

 possess metal tools. All the stone must have been brought from the mountains on the 

 backs of men or women, no slight task considering that some of the blocks are 4 feet long, 

 1 foot wide, and 6 or 8 inches thick, and must weigh 300 to 400 pounds. Aside from the 

 circular tower the fort contains 21 rooms which are still distinct; these are much larger 

 than the rooms of ordinary dwelling-houses, and vary from 10 by 12 to 20 by 30 feet. 

 Probably the larger ones were never covered with roofs. We can not be sure of this, 

 however, for the ancient people knew how to utiUze wooden beams, as is evident in the 

 tower, where the different stories appear to have been separated by floors built of wood. 

 Apparently the inhabitants did not for the most part dwell in the fort itself, but in less 

 pretentious and more extensive structures round about. These are now reduced to long 

 rounded mounds of varying height. Evidently some parts had one story, some two, and 

 some probably three. They were built of stones like the fort, but with less care and with 

 smaller blocks less painstakingly squared. Within a radius of a quarter of a mile of the 

 fort eleven communal dwelling-houses can be counted. Reckoning the average size of 

 the rooms as 9 by 10 feet, which is the approximate size of those excavated in similar ruins, 

 and allowing for some parts having two stories and a few three, the total number of rooms 

 in this village was probably over 300, or enough for a population of 250 people. 



Kin Ya'a is not the only ruin in this immediate vicinity. About a third of a mile to the 

 west another and larger one, nameless so far as I could ascertain, has an extent of at least 

 800 feet from north to south. It appears to have been composed of a number of large 

 communal houses, built close together. Most of the houses were apparently one story 

 high, and were constructed without much stone. At the south end of the village, however, 

 there was a large house, 90 feet long, having at least two stories and possibly thi-ee. Half 

 a mile north of Kin Ya'a, still a third ruin has three or four houses and possibly 100 rooms. 



