10 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bill. 35 



Causes of Depopulation 



There was probably not one village surviving- in this vast area at 

 the time of Coronado's journey; but the ancient ruins, by their pro- 

 fusion, indicate that a comparatively dense population once lived 

 there. What, then, were the causes which led to the extinction of 

 these people? So far as may be inferred from present conditions, the 

 environment was favorable for the maintenance of Indian tribes, and 

 it is probable, therefore, that there is no geographic or climatic con- 

 dition adequate to explain the depopulation of the whole region. In 

 some sections disease may have checked the growth of population and 

 finally exterminated the inhabitants, for even in the elevated localities 

 fevers of a certain class bear heavily a-t times upon the present set- 

 tlers. In some of the river valleys malaria also at times is prevalent. 

 On the whole, however, the climate is salubrious. Exploration of the 

 ancient ruins, so far as this has been accomplished, invariably shows, 

 moreover, that the abandonment of the pueblos was not cine to inter- 

 nal warfare or to attacks by outside enemies. 



In reference to the failure of the food supply, due to prolonged 

 drought or other circumstances, there is reason to believe that such 

 failures were less prevalent in former times than in the years since 

 the occupancy by white men. However, starvation may have been a 

 factor in the decline of population in certain localities. 



It may be that the most potent cause existed in the social organiza- 

 tion of the people, coupled with the isolation enforced by the environ- 

 ment. It is known that the social organization of the existing Pueblo 

 tribes among which marriage is prohibited within the clan tends to 

 self -extinction, and it is possible that the tribes of the Gila suffered 

 from the same cause. 



Evidence of the growth and decline of several ancient pueblos on 

 the San Francisco river has been brought to light. In one typical 

 example the village had grown to its limits by the natural accretion 

 of houses forming a polygonal mass, and the cemetery lay outside its 

 walls in the normal position, with the burials placed in the same 

 manner as in numerous other sites. It was found that the external 

 rooms on the ground floor of the pueblo also had been used for burial.' 1 

 Further examination showed that a row of inner rooms had been so 

 used, and that other rooms toward the center of the pueblo were 

 devoted likewise to mortuary purposes. In these central rooms the 

 burials were evidently later, since in many cases no offerings of pot- 

 tery or other objects were placed with the dead. We have here what 



° In Halona (a historic Zufii pueblo) and Los Muertos, in the Salt River valley, the 

 inhabitants continued to live in the houses in which burials had been made, but these 

 interments were under floors, while in the Gila-Salt pueblos the rooms usually contained 

 several graves at different depths, and in some cases were full of skeletons. 



