ARCHEOLOGY. (AMERICAN.) 



great antiquity, and that they were contemporane- 

 ous with the formation of certain of these de- 

 posits. The evidence thus secured during many 

 years of research has made it impossible, accord- 

 ing to the report of the museum, " for any one 

 familiar with the facts to doubt that man was 

 living at the time of the deposit of these forma- 

 tions in the valley." Mr. Volk has secured re- 

 mains of several human skeletons which were 

 found at such great depths and under such con- 

 ditions as to prove their very considerable an- 

 tiquity. He also obtained a large number of ob- 

 jects relating to the early Indian occupation of 

 the valley. 



A village site on Long Island, discovered by 

 Mr. Harrington and thoroughly examined, yielded 

 specimens of pottery, stone implements, and other 

 objects, and several skeletons. 



During a summer excursion in 1900 the curator 

 of the museum, Prof. F. W. Putnam, visited New 

 Mexico in connection with the work in anthropo- 

 logical measurements, etc., of Mr. E. T. P. Hyde, 

 and for the purpose of making a comparative sur- 

 vey of the ruins on the mesas and in the caiions 

 in reference to their contemporaneity and their 

 greater or less antiquity. 



Archeological Institute of America. The 

 annual report of the Archeological Institute of 

 America, published in February, .gave the number 

 of members as 900, the largest number in the his- 

 tory of the society, and the year's income as 

 $8,002. A balance remained in the treasury of 

 $1,874, the principal part of which was pledged 

 to publishing the results of the Argive excava- 

 tions. Nineteen institutions had promised sup- 

 port to the American school in Palestine, for the 

 opening of which sufficient means had now been 

 secured; and the director, Prof. Torrey, was at 

 Constantinople waiting for authority to go on 

 with it. The school at Athens had been attended 

 by 15 students. The Charles Eliot Norton fel- 

 lowship, founded at Harvard University during 

 the year for a scholar in some special subject at 

 the school in Athens, yielded $600 a year. The 

 school at Rome had been attended by 24 students, 

 9 of them women. A board of 7 trustees for the 

 care of its finances had been constituted. It had 

 suffered a shrinkage in income, and was strait- 

 ened. 



The Saginaw Valley, Michigan. Mr. Har- 

 lan I. Smith is publishing a paper serially in the 

 American Anthropologist embodying a summary 

 of the archeology of the Saginaw valley, Michi- 

 gan. The evidences, he says, on the extensive vil- 

 lage sites and in the burial places, mounds, and 

 other remains along the streams, suggest that the 

 conditions of life in prehistoric times were similar 

 to those which existed when the Indians were 

 first met by the whites. His paper aims primarily 

 to summarize all the available data with refer- 

 ence to every source of information; to publish 

 original manuscript and other material not gen- 

 erally accessible; to include all clues and rumors, 

 however vague, which might lead to further 

 knowledge, and to classify all, in order that the 

 summary may serve as a field library for ready 

 reference in acquiring and recording further data 

 on the subject. The author's personal contribu- 

 tion is based on observations and a collection be- 

 gun in 1883 which was made in explorations that 

 dealt chiefly with surface evidences. 



Ruins near Flagstaff, Arizona. The results 

 of cursory examinations of the ruins near Flag- 

 staff, Arizona, made in 1890, are published by J. 

 Walter Fewkes in the American Anthropologist, 

 July-September, 1900, in a preliminary paper, it 

 being the author's intention to resume and con- 



tinue his exploration. The three types of Arizo- 

 nian ruins, denominated cavoate rooms, clifT 

 houses, and pueblos, were all found to be well 

 represented. The caveate rooms are burrowed in 

 lava, generally in the top or sides of cinder-cones. 

 The cliff houses, situated in Walnut Cafion, are 

 small but typical. The pueblos occur in well- 

 preserved ruins near Little Walnut river, and are 

 built of lava, sandstone, and limestone blocks. 

 Only a few of the ancient habitations dotting the 

 country about Flagstaff are noted in the author's 

 preliminary account, but some of these are de- 

 scribed in full, with details concerning the ar- 

 rangement and character of the rooms. The 

 caveate rooms are excavated in lava or volcanic 

 breccia, and may be described as caveate rooms 

 with vertical entrances and caveate rooms with 

 lateral entrances. The former are well illustrated 

 by the "old caves" one mile east of Flagstaff; 

 the latter by the " new caves " twelve miles east 

 of the same place, and by caveate rooms one 

 half mile west of Turkey Tanks. The two types 

 are similar, and the former inhabitants were 

 apparently of about the same culture. The frag- 

 ments of pottery seen about the entrances to these 

 caves are identical with those found near the 

 pueblo ruins in the neighborhood. It is inferred 

 that the cave inhabitants burrowed in the lava 

 as the most practical means of constructing 

 dwellings which the region afforded. Free walls 

 were found in combination with the caves, but 

 they presented special distinctive characteristics. 

 The builders simply used available building ma- 

 terial and took advantage of geological condi- 

 tions. An arrangement in tiers was observed in 

 some of the " new caves " near Turkey Tanks. In 

 some of these caveate rooms a combination of 

 stone walls and excavated chambers was ob- 

 served, the lateral separation of the rooms having 

 been made by a plastered wall of small boulders 

 brought from the bottom of the adjacent depres- 

 sion. Walls seem also to have formerly existed 

 in front of the entrances to the caves, but they 

 have for the most part fallen. The pueblo ruins 

 near Black Falls, on the Little Colorado river, are 

 as a rule cubical, with rectangular rooms of one 

 or more stories. Curved walls are rare, although 

 in some instances the shape of the ruin follows the 

 curvature of the mesa on which it stands. The 

 structures were built of sandstone and lava, and 

 the two varieties are found in close proximity. 

 The sites of some of these pueblos are unusually 

 high. It is not uncommon to find an entire mesa 

 top covered with rooms or surmounted by a wall 

 perpendicular to the escarpment. The ground- 

 floor rooms had no external entrances, but where 

 there were several chambers side by side they 

 communicated with each other by doorways. The 

 highest walls of the pueblos are as a rule on the 

 north and east sides an arrangement which se- 

 cured a sunny exposure. One-story rooms at the 

 base of the mesa, called basal rooms, are found in 

 most of the ruins. They are now covered by rub- 

 bish, but were once protected by the overhanging 

 edge of the mesa. They suggest cliff houses, and 

 may be a survival of them. The walls of a build- 

 ing called the citadel are made of blocks of lava 

 and sandstone, covering the top of a truncated 

 elevation, and are arranged about a central court 

 or plaza. In a cemetery near one of the groups of 

 dwellings the graves were oval, commodious cysts 

 made of slabs of stone set on end and covered 

 with other stones. The upright stones were ce- 

 mented together with adobe. In one of them were 

 the remains of a woman, lying upon her side. 

 Near the body was a decorated food bowl, within 

 which were a smaller bowl, a decorated vase, and 



