NO. 12 ARCHEOLOGY OF TAOS VALLEY JEANCON 3 



meat, and at the time when the Spaniards arrived they were found 

 wearing clothing made from the hides of that animal and of deer. 



Although the streams abounded in fish, there is some question 

 whether they were used as food. Some of the Pueblos are very much 

 averse to eating fish because of certain superstitious beliefs ; others 

 have no such feeling and eat them as freely as does the white man. 



SITES IN THE TAOS VALLEY REGION 



The general area covered under the name of Taos Valley is some- 

 what larger than the valley proper. 



Ruins have been reported as far north as the state lines of New 

 Mexico and, Colorado including two large sites, one at a place called 

 " The Lobo," the other at the Hondo crossing of the Rio Grande. 

 Owing to lack of time the writer was not able to visit these sites. 



Starting at a point four miles north of Fernandez de Taos, the 

 American village three miles southwest of the Taos pueblo, and run- 

 ning east to the foothills (between two and one-half and three 

 miles) are many series of tower remains; also long lines of broken 

 ditches. In many places the mounds have been disturbed or almost 

 wholly obliterated by agriculture. The " tower sites " are only ten- 

 tatively so named, as their exact character could not be determined 

 without excavation. The mounds are all low, none being over three 

 feet in height, while most of them fail to attain even that elevation 

 above the surrounding land. All are circular, slightly higher at the 

 center than at the periphery, and are composed of river boulders. 

 They vary from three to twenty feet in diameter. No traces of 

 mortar or adobe plastering were observed on any of the stones. 

 None of the mounds appear to bear any special relation, with regard 

 to position, to any other ; they are scattered at random all over the 

 area. As far as the writer observed they were all on the north side 

 of the remains of a large ditch which begins in the foothills close 

 to the present Pueblo of Taos and runs out over the valley for more 

 than four miles. At present there are not many potsherds scattered 

 over the area. No information could be obtained from the Indians as 

 to the meaning of these remains. 



One and one-half miles east of Fernandez de Taos is a low mound 

 from which project corners of a wall constructed of river boulders 

 laid up in adobe. There is also a small burial mound. Although the 

 whole area has been more or less cut up by farming activities, a series 

 of small house remains is still in evidence extending for one-fourth 

 of a mile west. All of these sites are covered with a great number of 



