482 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



with debris. Skeletal rejects found here may logically be supposed 

 to reveal the character of the animal food of the natives, but the 

 bones have not yet been fully identified, so that conclusions based 

 on them must be tentative. We are, however, justified in saying, 

 in this preliminary account, that bones of birds, and quadrupeds, 

 such as rabbits, deer, antelope, mountain sheep, and elk, are per- 

 haps the most common. Judging from the number found, it would 

 appear that meat formed a considerable part of their diet, but the 

 indications are that the inhabitants were primarily vegetarians, sub- 

 sisting mainly on corn, beans, melons, and various wild fruits and 

 herbs, piiion nuts in season, and other products, many of which now 

 grow wild on top of the plateau. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



We can not say, without more extensive excavations, how much 

 variation may exist in the forms of Mesa Verde pueblos or the 

 arrangement of rooms in them, but all the mounds superficially 

 examined shoAv as a constant feature a marked central depression, 

 apparently indicating a large kiva around which were arranged 

 other and smaller rooms. We find surface indications of the pres- 

 ence of all forms of secular and small circular sacred rooms, from a 

 tower " with rooms arranged around its outer wall " to round kivas 

 embedded among square rooms. The peripheral wall of one or 

 two impart a circular form to the mound; that of others, a rec- 

 tangular outline. 



The theoretical signification of the mounds on the Mesa Verde 

 plateau has not escaped the attention of Baron Nordenskiold, who 

 arrived at this interesting conclusion which the present writer's exca- 

 vations prove: 



Much may be said in favor of the opinion that the villages on the mesa and 

 the cliff dwellers are the work of the same people, though no positive proof 

 of this can be given. * * * As far as can be gathered from the heaps of 

 ruins that now mark the site of these villages, the walls are constructed in the 

 same manner as the best built parts of the Cliff Palace or Balcony House, of 

 hewn stone in regular courses. The arrangement of the rooms, the plan of the 

 building, etc., can not be ascertained without extensive excavations, for the 

 execution of which I had no time. The far more advanced stages of decay 

 attained by the ruins may possibly be adduced as evidence of their great age. 



The evidence offered by Baron Nordenslnold to support the 

 theory that the cliff dwellings were abandoned and subsequently 

 repeopled is not as strong as might be desired. 



It is very probable [writes Nordenskiold, whose honored name will always be 

 associated with the Mesa Verdel that some of the cliff dwellings were inhabited 

 contemporaneously with the villages in the open, and perhaps even later than 

 they. This is suggested by the excellent state of preservation shown by some of 

 the former, for instance. Balcony House. We are forced to conclude that they 



