CAVE DWELLINGS FEWKES 621 



campaign against Turkey, came to a town of this character in Asia 

 Minor. The people fled to their subterranean rooms, closing the 

 entrance behind them by rolling great stones over the doorways, 1 so 

 that the Egyptian soldiers could not force their way into these re- 

 treats. When the latter were sorely in need of water and lowered 

 buckets to draw it up from the wells, it is said the people under- 

 ground cut the ropes, causing the soldiers to withdraw. 



Dr. Ellsworth Huntington, in an interesting account of his visit 

 to certain Druse caves in Syria, published in Harper's Magazine, for 

 April, 1910, has shown how this was possible. It appears that these 

 caves were safe retreats in time of danger, being in communication 

 with houses above. He found in them remains of tanks, from which 

 water could be drawn by those in rooms above. It would not be 

 possible to obtain water if there were hostile people in the caves below 

 near the tanks. 



The most instructive resume of the dwellings of the aborigines 

 of North America has been written by Herr Sarfert, 2 who has con- 

 sidered many points of interest to the student of subterranean or 

 cave habitations. It would seem from his studies that underground 

 habitations had a wide distribution in the New World in prehistoric 

 times, and that there was a line of such, interrupted at intervals, ex- 

 tending from the Aleutian Islands along the west coast of North 

 America into Central America. The relation of the underground 

 ceremonial room in California and the kiva in the pueblo region is 

 not the least of many interesting suggestions in Herr Sarferfs article. 



Cavate habitations in cliffs on Oak Creek, a tributary of the Verde, 

 Ariz., correspond with caves used by Guanches for ceremonies and 

 burials in the Canaries. Many similar examples from the Old and 

 New Worlds might have been chosen, some with buildings before 

 them, others destitute of the same. In many instances these former 

 habitations have become burial chambers, once deserted by the in- 

 habitants ; they were used later as catacombs for the dead. Instances 

 of this secondary use can be found all the way from China to the 

 southwestern part of the United States. 



These artificial caves are not confined to Asia and America, but 

 are also abundant in Europe. Many are found in Germany, 3 in 

 France (pis. 1, 2) along the River Loire, where the older cave rooms 

 now serve for storage, and new, occupied dwellings have been erected 

 in front of them. 4 The caves of Dordogne, France, have been studied 

 and their contents figured and described in the magnificent work, 



1 The method of closing the doorway hy rolling a great circular stone hefore it seems 

 to have been common in the cave habitations of Asia Minor. 



2 Haus and Dorf bei den Eigeborenen Nordamerikas, Archiv f. Anthrop, vol. 25. 



3 See Lambert Karmer, Kiinstliche Hohlen ans Alter Zeit, Wien, 1903. The examples 

 described are from Germany and America. 



4 I am indebted to Professor Partington, of the National Tark Seminary, for the use 

 of the photographs used for plates 1 and 2. 



