Petroglyphs, or pictures chiseled on rock, representing mythical horned serpents, near 

 Pueblo San Cristobal 



RUINS OF PREHISTORIC NEW MEXICO 



EXTENSIVE EXCAVATIONS OF PUEBLOS IN THE RIO 

 GRANDE VALLEY 



By N. C. Nelson 



AFTER the lapse of a decade the American Museum has once more 

 begun archaeological research in the Southwest. It is felt that 

 many problems relating to the origin and distribution of peoples 

 and to cultural traits now observable in the Southwest cannot be solved in 

 their entirety by the examination of present-day conditions or even by con- 

 sulting Spanish documentary history, which though it takes us back nearly 

 four hundred years and is reasonably accurate, shows us little more than the 

 last phase of development within this most interesting ethnographic divi- 

 sion of the United States. By a tolerably exhaustive study of the thousands 

 of ruins and other archaeological features characteristic of the region, we may 

 hope in time to gain not only an idea of prehistoric conditions but perhaps 

 also an adequate explanation of the origin, the antiquity and the course 

 of development leading up to a better understanding of the present status 

 of aboriginal life in the region. 



The field is very large and the work to be done so well-nigh momentous 

 that no one institution will presume to accomplish it. Up to thirty years 



63 



