Vol. 52 1909 



Smithsonian 

 Miscellaneous Collections 



Vol. 5 Quarterly issue Part 4 



PREHISTORIC RUINS OF THE GILA VALLEY 



By J. WALTER FEWKES 

 Wnu Five Plates 



At the close of the author's field work at Casa Grande, Arizona, 

 in the spring of 1908. he received a grant from the Secretary of the 

 Smithsonian Institution for comparative studies of the same type in 

 the Gila Valley and its tributaries. The following pages contain a 

 report of this work, including some additional data collected in 

 former years. The present investigation is limited especially to that 

 type of mounds supposed to indicate Great Houses like Casa Grande, 

 the type of buildings characteristic of southern Arizona. As the 

 particular object of the study is to determine the geographical exten- 

 sion of ruins of this kind, many buildings, like cliff dwellings and 

 cavate rooms, common on the northern tributaries of the Salt, as 

 the Verde and Tonto rivers, are not considered.^ 



The Casa Grande type of buildings is practically found only in 

 the plains bordering the Gila, Salt, and Santa Cruz rivers, where we 

 have every reason to suppose this specialized form of structure first 

 arose and later reached its highest development. Although it is 

 probable that this type, somewhat modified, occurs in the Tonto and 

 San Pedro valleys, it has not yet been recognized along the Verde 

 and does not occur, so far as exploration has thus far gone, in the 

 highlands in which the Salt and Gila rivers originate. It was of 

 course impossible, considering the vast extent of desert in which 

 these ruins are situated and the short time at the disposal of the 

 author, to visit all of the ruins in these regions. Although the 

 present report cannot be regarded as exhaustive, yet it is believed 



' The forms and general archeological features of the Casas Grandes of 

 Chihuahua appear to be identical with those of Casa Grande in Arizona, but 

 as the pottery objects are wholly different in the two regions, it would appear 

 that there were important cultural differences. 



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