﻿96 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



ARCHEOLOGICAL STUDIES OF THE WUPATKI NATIONAL 



MONUMENT 



So little was known in 1853 of the physical features of the region 

 between the Zuni and the Colorado Rivers, that in that year Captain 

 Sitgreaves, of the U. S. Corps of Topographical Engineers, was sent 

 by the Secretary of War to follow the Zuni River to its junction with 

 the Little Colorado and on to Yuma. One object of this trip, which 

 now seems almost ludicrous, was to determine the " navigable prop- 

 erties " of the two rivers. It did not take long to determine this. 

 Captain Sitgreaves records that between Camps 13 and 14, near the 

 Great Falls of the Little Colorado, " all the prominent points [were] 

 occupied by the ruins of stone houses of considerable size, and in 

 some instances of three stories in height. They are evidently," he 

 writes, " the remains of a large town, as they occurred at intervals 

 for an extent of eight or nine miles, and the ground was thickly 

 strewed with fragments of pottery in all directions." 



In 1900 these ruins, then locally called the Black Falls ruins, were 

 described and first figured by the present Chief of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, Dr. J. Walter Fcwkes, who was so much im- 

 pressed by their magnitude that he recommended they should be 

 preserved by the National Government.' In 1925, his hope was rea- 

 lized and they were declared a National Monument by Presidential 

 proclamation. 



Other literature on this monument is meagre, but the archeology 

 of the Flagstafif region has lately been studied by Professor and 

 Mrs. Colton, who have published valuable material on the " small 

 houses " of this region." The construction of a road recently laid 

 bare a prehistoric cemetery at Young's Canyon, i8| miles east of 

 Flagstaff, and the objects there brought to light have been acquired 

 and a description of them published.' 



At least two types of large ruins occur in this area, the former 

 of which is represented by the Citadel, figm^es 96 and 97. The second 



' A cluster of Arizona ruins which should he preserved. Records of the 

 Past, Vol. Ill, Pt. I, pp. 3-19, Washington, 1904. 



^ The little known small house ruins in the Coconino forest. Mem. Am. 

 Anthrop. Assn., Vol. V, No. 4, 1918. 



Did the so-called cliff dwellers of central Arizona also build hogans? .\m. 

 Anthrop., Vol. 22, 1920. 



^ An archeological collection from Young's Canyon, near Flagstaff, Arizona. 

 Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. "j-j. No. 10. 



