Explorations in New Mexico 



FIELD WORK IN THP] LA PLATA VALLEY DONE BY THE AMERICAN 

 MUSEUM— UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO EXPEDITION, WW 



Bv EAR L H. M K K I S 



IT is now more than forty years since 

 attention was first called^ to prehis- 

 toric rnins in the valley of the La 

 Plata Eiver, northwestern New Mexico. 

 Soon afterward, following in the wake 

 of Ute and Navaho, white settlers found 

 their way into the valley, and with 

 their coming began the destruction of 

 the aboriginal remains which for un- 

 numbered centuries had held their own 

 against the unbroken siege of time and 

 weather. In preparing new fields for 

 planting, grave after grave was ripped 

 open by the plowshare, and the bones of 

 the occupants tossed out to bleach in 

 the sun, or to be pawed over during 

 winter nights by coyotes. In the same 

 way literally thousands of pottery ves- 

 sels were exhumed. Some of them were 

 smashed to bits on the plow beam to 

 test their hardness, many of them were 

 sent by the ranchmen as curiosities to 

 friends and relatives, and the remainder 

 passed into the hands of chance collec- 

 tors who scattered them to the four 

 winds. 



By 1890 the discovery of the famous 

 cliff dwellings of the Mesa Verde and 

 the consequent awakening of interest 

 concerning the ancient peoples of the 

 Southwest created a market for so- 

 called "Aztec" pottery. Because of the 

 richness of the graves found by the 

 ranchmen, relic hunters were attracted 

 to the La Plata, and for the next ten 

 years not a winter passed that one or 

 more parties were not at work along the 

 valley, turning burial mounds topsy- 



1 By Dr. W. H. Holmes, of the United States 

 National Museum. 



turvy, and trenching back and forth 

 through the remains of dwellings. Dur- 

 ing all this time not once was pen put 

 to paper to set down the observations 

 of the excavators, nor was any record 

 kept of the specimens unearthed. 



The problems of the archaeologist 

 have not been rendered incapable of 

 solution, however, although the deplor- 

 able havoc wrought by agriculturists 

 and relic hunters has done much to 

 complicate them. A few groups of 

 ruins stand on land unfit for cultiva- 

 tion, and some of them are still rela- 

 tively well preserved owing to the fact 

 that their formidable bulk discouraged 

 even the most enterprising pottery dig- 

 gers. One of these groups is situated on 

 a high mesa ten miles above the mouth 

 of the La Plata. From the summit of 

 the mesa one beholds a magnificent 

 panorama of the surrounding country. 

 Far to the south a bold escarpment be- 

 yond the San Juan Eiver looms brown 

 and blue against the horizon. To the 

 northwest, above a wilderness of rugged 

 cliffs, a black-green carpet of timber 

 crowns the eastern rim of the Mesa 

 Verde, while to the north the snow-clad 

 crests of the La Plata Mountains rise, 

 l)rilliant as frost crystals in the sun- 

 light, or masked at times by banks of 

 frowning clouds, from behind a chaos 

 of clayey hills. In the immediate fore- 

 ground to the east and south a silvery 

 ribbon of river winds l)ack and forth 

 across a fertile valley. Fully six acres 

 of the mesa top are strewn with re- 

 mains of buildings and the black earth 

 of refuse and l)urial mounds. 



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