ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEMEZ PLATEAU, 

 NEW MEXICO 



By Edgar L. Hewett 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



The region tq which the name Jemez plateau is here appKed hes in 

 the northern central part of New Mexico on the west side of the Rio 

 Grande del Norte. The greater portion of the plateau is occupied by 

 the Jemez forest reserve. Six Indian reservations or gr^ants border on 

 or lie partly within its limits; these are the San Juan, Santa Clara, San 

 Ildefonso, Cochiti, Santo Domingo, and Jemez. Of the remaining 

 portion all that is not embraced within private land grants and small 

 holdings is public land. The ruins referred to in this bulletin are dis- 

 tributed as shown on the map (pi. xvii). In many cases locations are 

 only approximate, owing to the lack of authoritative surveys. The 

 map was prepared by the Forestry Office, the data being furnished 

 by the Forest Service of the Agricultural Department, the General 

 Land Office and the Geological Survey of the Interior Department, 

 and by the War Department, with corrections and additions by the 

 author. The archeological features of the map are the result of 

 investigations of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and are to be 

 revised and extended as soon as the necessary data are obtained. 



PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE JEMEZ PLATEAU 



The Jemez plateau may be said to extend from a point almost 

 directly west of Santa Fe to the Colorado line, a distance of about 90 

 miles. It is limited on the west by the Rio Puerco and has an extreme 

 breadth of about 60 miles (see map, pi. xvii). The area is divided 

 unequally by the Rio Chama, which flows through it from northwest 

 to southeast. The backbone of the northern or smaller portion is the 

 Tierra Amarilla mountains. With this region we have little to do in 

 this paper, as it is devoid of any conspicuous ruins except in the 

 southern part, that is, in the Rio Chama drainage. 



South of the Chama and crowning the plateau is a great complex 



of mountains loosely known as the Jemez. There are two important 



ranges. The western forms the watershed between the Rio Puerco 



and the Rio Jemez, and the eastern forms the Jemez-Rio Grande 



divide. 



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