FEWKEs] ANTIQUITIES OF MESA VERDE NATIONAL PAEK 11 



tributed some of the photographs used in the preparation of the 

 plates that accompany this report. The writer is indebted also to 

 Mr. F. K. Vreeland, of Montclair. New Jersey, for several fine photo- 

 graphs of Clitf Palace taken before the repairing was done. 



CLIFF PALACE A TYPE OF PREHISTORIC CULTURE 



In the following pages the walls and other remains of buildings 

 and the objects found in the rooms have been treated from their cul- 

 tural point of view. Considering ethnology, or culture history, as 

 the comparative study of mental productions of groups of men in 

 different epochs, and cultural archeology as a study of those objects 

 belonging to a time antedating recorded history, there has been sought 

 in Cliff Palace one tj^pe of iDrehistoric American culture, or rather 

 a type of the mental production of a group of men in an environment 

 where, so far as external influences are concerned, caves, mesas, and 

 cliffs are predominant and aridity is a dominant climatic factor. 

 Primarily archeology is a study of the expression of human intelli- 

 gence, and it must be continually borne in mind that Cliff Palace was 

 once the home of men and women whose minds responded to their sur- 

 roundings. It is hoped that this monograph will be a contribution 

 to a study of the influence of environment on the material condition of 

 a group of prehistoric people. The condition of culture here brought 

 to light is in part a result of experiences transmitted from one gen- 

 eration to another, but while this heritage of culture is due to en- 

 vironment, intensified by each transmission, there are likewise in it 

 survivals of the culture due to antecedent environments, which have 

 also been preserved by heredity, but has diminished in propor- 

 tion, pari passu, as the epoch in which they originated is farther 

 and farther removed in time from the environment that created them. 

 These survivals occur mostly in myths and religious cult objects, and 

 are the last to be abandoned when man changes his environment. 



It is believed that one advantage of a series of monographic de- 

 scriptions of these ruins is found in the fact that the characteristics of 

 individual ruins being known, more accurate generalizations concern- 

 ing the entire culture will later be made possible by comparative 

 studies. There is an individuality in Cliff Palace, not only in its 

 architecture but also in a still greater measure in the symbolism of 

 the pottery decoration. These features vary more or less in different 

 ruins, notwithstanding their former inhabitants were of similar 

 culture. These variations are lost in a general description of that 

 culture. 



The reader is asked to bear in mind that when the repair of Cliff 

 Palace was undertaken the vandalism wrought by those who had dug 

 into it had destroyed much data and greatly reduced the possibility 



