58 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 



pueblo ruins of the Southwest. The building stones have been 

 dressed to shape, matched for size, and their faces finished by pecking, 

 with such labor as to confirm the belief that this ancient village was 

 designed for permanent occupancy. Altogether the work proves of 

 great interest, and it is suprising to note the one failing, on the part of 

 these early builders : they seem to have been unaware of the necessity 

 of breaking the vertical joints in the courses of masonry, thus 

 causing many weak points in the otherwise excellent walls. 



Among the special features of interest which Mr. Hodge dis- 

 covered were a burial cist where skeletons, pottery, and the remains 

 of a mat were found ; three small cliiT lodges situated in the sides of 

 the clifi:'s ; several ceremonial rooms or kivas associated with the 

 ruined houses, and the remains of the early reservoirs of the in- 

 habitants. 



A full report on the exploration of this interesting pueblo will be 

 made by ]\Ir. Hodge in a later publication. 



ANTIQUITIES OF THE WEST INDIES 



Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, ethnologist in the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology, spent January, February, March, and part of April, 1913, 

 in the West Indies, studying the prehistoric antiquities of the Lesser 

 Antilles, and gathering material for a proposed monograph on the 

 al)origines of these islands. He examined numerous local collections, 

 and visited many village sites, prehistoric mounds, shellheaps, and 

 bowlders bearing incised pictographs. 



The most extensive excavations during these months were made 

 at Erin Bay, Trinidad, in a shellheap of considerable size, where he 

 found a valuable collection of animal heads made of terra cotta and 

 stone, and other objects illustrating the early culture of that island. 

 From Trinidad he went to Barbados, where he found evidences 

 of the former existence of cave people living in a shell age or one 

 in which stone was replaced ])y shell. Excavations were later made 

 at a village site of the Black Caribs at Banana Bay, Balliceaux, a small 

 island near St. Vincent, and a small collection was gathered from it. 



He obtained many drawings of specimens in a rich collection from 

 St. Kitts and Nevis, owned by Mr. Connell, and examined the shell- 

 heaps at Salt River, Christianstadt, St. Croix, and at Indian River, 

 Barbados. The collection of prehistoric objects obtained from St. 

 Croix, Danish West Indies, was ample to prove that the early culture 

 of the inhabitants of this island was more closely related to the culture 



