NO. 8 DESIGNS ON MIMBRES POTTERY — FEWKES 3 



meager and no one has identified the survivors of these people. 

 Archeology- contributes knowledge of their life by means of objective 

 material and for that material we must search among wrecks of their 

 houses and the mortuary and other objects which are found in them 

 or in their graves and refuse heaps. 



No one has yet carefully excavated their buildings sufificiently to 

 determine the form of their rooms, although fragments of walls have 

 been brought to light. There are two types of mounds, differing in 

 size and contents. One of these types, situated at the Gonzales Ranch, 

 is lenticular in form, made up of adobe containing few stones. These 

 mounds appear as low elevations rising but a few feet above the 

 surrounding surface. The other type, which seems to belong to a later 

 settlement, is indicated superficially by piles of stones formerly laid 

 in adobe in walls of rudest masonry. These walls formed rooms 

 united in rows or even inclosing square courts. In some places there 

 appear on the surface circles of stones,* generally of small diameter, 

 bearing outward resemblances to the tops of the bounding walls of 

 buried ceremonial rooms or kivas. Circular kivas have not Ijeen 

 found, up to the present, as far south as the Mimbres but a knowl- 

 edge of their existence and structure would be of value in comparative 

 studies. Subterranean walls extending far below the surface have 

 been laid bare, and several of these have a fine plastered surface.* 

 Little is known of the structure of the roofs as wooden beams have 

 not yet been found. The floors are composed of hardened adobe, 

 sometimes overlaid with flat stones. The dead were buried in the 

 corners of the rooms below the floors, some with limbs extended, 

 others flexed. The bowls that accompany the dead are variously 

 placed, some being at the side of the dead, but now and then they were 

 placed over the head like a cap. Mortuary bowls were deposited 

 with the dead by the ancient pueblos, whose cemeteries are situated 

 outside the walls of their villages. These clusters of stone houses 

 are locally called Indian grave yards, and are generally situated on 

 natural terraces a few feet alx)ve the river bed to avoid inundation, 

 l)ut are not confined to the banks of the river, often appearing miles 



* Possibly ceremonial rooms. " Architecturally the prehistoric habitations of 

 the Mimbres Valley represent an old house form widely distributed in the 

 Pueblo region or that antedating the pueblo or terraced-house type before 

 the kiva had developed." — Arch. Mimbres Valley, p. 52. 



'Mr. Cosgrove (El Palacio, July 16. 1923) identifies two rectangular rooms 

 excavated by him at " Treasure Hill " as kivas, and refers to ventilation in 

 them. The author is unable to accept this identification without more knowl- 

 edge than is now available of their structure. 



