﻿NO. 15 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I92I 67 



The plan of the work of the Bureau on the Mesa Verde National 

 Park in 1 92 1 was to investigate a conspicuous and centrally placed 

 mound not far from Far View House. The indications are that this 

 was an ancient necropolis of the Plummy Lake Village, combining 

 subterranean rooms or kivas with a large cemetery situated on the 

 southern side of a high tower. Unfortunately, this cemetery had been 

 rifled several years ago by vandals ; but the many fragments of pottery 

 found on the surface betray features important in cultural comparisons. 



Far View Tower was relatively an ancient building ; its architectural 

 form is characteristic and its pottery decidedly archaic as compared 

 with that of the golden epoch of geometric decoration from Cliff 

 Palace or Spruce-tree House. We may never know in what century 

 this tower was built, but its construction can be referred to an older 

 epoch than the great cliff dwellings of the park, which were probably 

 inhabited as late as 1360 A. D. The refuse heaps of cliff houses 

 have so little depth that a stratification or superposition of pottery 

 shards is too small to afford satisfactory evidence of long occupancy. 

 In historic refuse heaps of pueblos now inhabited they are thicker and 

 the stratification method has proved advantageous ; but nothing that 

 was not already known has been added to our knowledge of the 

 sequence of prehistoric pottery of cliff' houses by this method of study. 

 No Mesa Verde refuse mound has yet shown any difference in the 

 character of pottery found on its surface and at its base. The pottery 

 fragments of mounds containing relics of earth lodges are as a rule 

 cruder than others. The pottery from the cemetery or necropolis of 

 Far View Tower is rudely decorated ware, while that from Far View 

 House is finer, but not as well made as that from Spruce-tree House. 

 It is probably older than the pottery from Far View House, but both 

 are more ancient than the pottery from Spruce-tree House. 



Far View Tower (fig. 71 ), like Cedar-tree Tower, has one and pos- 

 sibly more subterranean rooms or kivas on the south side, but the 

 latter lacks the large cemetery. The use to which Far View Tower 

 was put and the significance of the relation of the accompanying kivas 

 to it were probably not very different from those at Cedar-tree 

 Tower, discovered last year (1920). Evidently the complex was 

 devoted to some archaic cult, like fire worship. 



In addition to the work above mentioned, Doctor Fewkes also 

 excavated Painted Kiva House, a small prehistoric cliff' dwelling 

 situated on the Mesa Verde a short distance north of Cedar-tree 

 Tower, under the rim of the west side of Soda Canyon. This ruin 

 was excavated and described by Baron Nordenskiold, who called it 

 Ruin 9. It contains remains of two well-made kivas of the regular 



