2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 



The valley of the Alimbres has never been regarded as favorable 

 to archeological studies, but has practically been overlooked, possibly 

 because of the more attractive fields in the regions to the north and 

 west, so that only very meager accounts have been published.' 



The present article, which is a preliminary report on an archeologi- 

 cal excursion into this valley in May and June, 19 14, is an efifort to 

 add to existing knowledge of the archeology of the valley. During 

 this reconnaissance the author obtained by excavation and purchase 

 a collection of prehistoric objects which have added desirable exhibi- 

 tion material to the collections in the U. S. National Museum.' 



Historical 



The recorded history of the inhabitants of the Mimbres is brief. 

 One of the earliest descriptions of the valley, in English, is found in 

 Bartlett's " Personal Narrative," published in 1854. In his account 

 of a trip to the copper mines at the present Santa Rita, Bartlett 

 records seeing a herd of about twenty black-tailed deer, turkeys and 

 other game birds, antelopes, bears, and fine trout in the streams. He 



tory," Mr. A. R. Graham gives an instructive account of cleaning out the 

 Faywood Hot Springs where he found the following relics: (i) parts of skulls 

 and bones of several human beings; (2) over fifty spearheads and arrowheads 

 of every shape and style of workmanship, the spearheads being valuable for 

 their size and symmetry; (3) nine large warclubs made of stone; (4) a large 

 variety of teeth of animals as well as large bones of extinct animals; (5) the 

 most interesting relics are ten stone pipes from four to seven inches in length ; 

 (6) flint hatchet and a stone hammer, together with stones worn flat from 

 use ; beads made of vegetable seed and bird bones ; part of two Indian bows 

 with vvhich was found a quiver in which was quite a bunch of long, coarse 

 black hair that was soon lost after being dried. — Amer. Anthrop., n. s., 

 vol. 4, pp. 126, 127. 



^ The Santa Rita mines early attracted the conquistadors looking for gold, 

 and were worked in ancient times by the Spaniards, the ores obtained finding 

 an outlet along a road down the valley to the city of Chihuahua. The pre- 

 historic people also mined native Mimbres copper, and probably obtained from 

 these mings and from those in Cook's Range, the native copper from which 

 were made the hawk-bells sometimes found in Arizona and New Mexico. 

 From these localities also were derived fragments of float copper often found 

 in Southwestern ruins and commonly ascribed to localities in Mexico. From 

 here came also a form of primitive stone mauls used in early days of the 

 working of the mines. 



'' The National Museum had nothing from the Lower Mimbres before this 

 addition, although it has a few specimens, without zoic designs, from Fort 

 Bayard, in the Upper Mimbres. The latter are figured by Dr. Hough, Bull. 87, 

 U. S. National Museum. 



