EXCAVATION OF THE AZTEC RUIN 



87 



and to have fought from behind a para- 

 pet. At all events, the initial attack 

 would have to be delivered against this 

 wall, because it affords the only means 

 of access to the village, the strong outer 

 walls of the pueblo buildings proper 

 being a sheer three or four stories high 

 and provided ■ with no apertures large 

 enough to admit a man. Even if the 

 enemy succeeded in reaching the court 

 of the village, his victory was less than 

 half assured, because there were no en- 

 trances leading directly from the court 

 to the houses. As may be observed 

 in the restoration, the three buildings 

 on the sides facing the court rose by 

 receding steps, each normally one story 

 high and one room wide. These sepa- 

 rate levels of rooms were reached not by 

 interior stairways but b}' outside lad- 

 ders which could always be drawn up, 

 thus placing the attacking foe at a suc- 

 cession of disadvantages. Of particular 

 importance was the fact that while each 

 of the upper tiers of rooms was entered 

 by a door through the front wall in 

 the normal way. the ground floor rooms 

 were entered only through trapdoors in 

 the roof. The enemy, to get into the 

 building at all (to set fire to it, let us 

 say), was therefore obliged first to scale 

 the lower story. To do this he would 

 have to bring his own ladders and ex- 

 pose himself in a more or less weapon- 

 less condition. From these brief de- 

 tails it will 1)0 apparent that as a mili- 

 tary contrivance this type of village 

 could scarcely be improved upon. 



One very interesting fact about this 

 type of pueblo, is that the builders must 

 have planned it out in full before be- 

 ginning construction, because the vil- 

 lage, once completed, was relatively dif- 

 ficult to modify or enlarge. This im- 

 plies that the builders must have taken 

 something like a census of the origi- 

 nally dispersed members of the com- 



munity and have built on a scale to 

 suit demands. Limited modifications 

 and enlargements could he made, how- 

 ever, and are indicated perhaps in the 

 Aztec pueblo by the addition of a series 

 of rooms on the court side of the west 

 wing. There is also the suggestion of a 

 building projecting into the court from 

 the center of the main wing. This 

 center wing is very unevenly developed 

 in observed ruins of the type, and may, 

 therefore, be a deliberately chosen 

 method of accommodating an increas- 

 ing population. 



The Aztec ruin lies on the smooth 

 but gently sloping valley floor, perhaps 

 five hundred yards from the right bank 

 of the Animas Eiver and about two 

 hundred yards from the base of the 

 barren gravelly uplands. Within a 

 stone's throw there are no fewer than 

 eight additional ruins (one, at least, 

 being apparently incorporated in the 

 pueblo), and within a mile or less there 

 might at one time have been counted 

 certainly all of one hundred ruins, some 

 situated in the valley and some on the 

 terraces above. The greater number of 

 these ruins are of small or medium size, 

 representing houses of both angular and 

 curvilineal ground plans, and built, as 

 a rule, of easily procured cobblestones 

 or river bowlders, laid in mud. Some 

 are built entirely of mud or adobe. Oc- 

 casional ruins, however, were con- 

 structed more or less completely of 

 dressed sandstone blocks, as is the 

 main pueblo itself. In other words, 

 we have here, probably, the remains of 

 a long-lived community, the members 

 of which at first lived in scattered 

 houses but gradually united into larger 

 and larger groups until finally, per- 

 haps, they were all gathered within the 

 walls of the fortress-like pueblo. 



The great Aztec pueblo contained 

 about five hundred rooms and may 



