FEWKES] ANTIQUITIES OF MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 79 



possessed by him, did not hesitate to express decided views on this 

 point : 



We are forced to conclude that they [cliff-houses] were abandoned later 

 than the villages on the mesa. Some features, for example, the superposition 

 of walls constructed with the greatest proficiency on others built in a more 

 primitive fashion (see plate xiii) indicate that the cliff-dwellings have been 

 inhabited at two different periods. They were first abandoned, and had partly 

 fallen into ruin, but were subsequently repeopled, new walls being now erected 

 on the ruins of the old. The best explanation hereof seems to be the following : 

 On the plateaux and in the valleys the Pueblo tribes attained their widest 

 distribution and their highest development. The numerous villages at no 

 great distance from each other were strong enough to defy their hostile neigh- 

 bors. But afterwards, from causes difficult of elucidation, a period of decay 

 set in, the number and population of the villages gradually decreased, and the 

 inhabitants were again compelled to take refuge in the remote fastnesses. Here 

 the people of the Mesa Verde finally succumbed to their enemies. The memory 

 of their last struggle is preserved by the numerous human bones found in 

 many places, strewn among the ruined cliff-dwellings. These human remains 

 occur in situations where it is impossible to assume that they have been 

 interred. 



Closely connected with the relative age and the identity of the 

 Mesa Verde cliff-house and pueblo culture are the age and relation- 

 ship of different cliff-houses of the same region, for example, Cliff 

 Palace and Spruce-tree House. The relative number of kivas may 

 shed light on this point. 



The relative proportion of the number of kivas to secular houses 

 varies in Cliff Palace and Spruce-tree House. In the former there 

 are about 7 secular rooms to every kiva ; in the latter about 15. Long 

 House has a still more marked difference, there being here only a few 

 secular houses and a maximum number of kivas. Whether this vari- 

 ation has any meaning it is impossible to say definitely ; theoretically, 

 as compared with modern pueblos, the proportionately larger number 

 of kivas points to a sociological condition in Cliff' Palace characteristic 

 of more primitive times. The larger the number of kivas relatively 

 to secular rooms the older the ruin. Long House would be regarded 

 as older than Cliff Palace, and Cliff Palace older than Spruce-tree 

 House, Balcony House being the most modern and the last of the four 

 to be deserted. A cliff-dwelling with a kiva but without secular 

 rooms IS rare, and one with secular rooms but without kivas is like- 

 wise unusual. Where the latter exists it is so situated as to indicate 

 that it was subordinated to neighboring large cliff-dwellings. 



The relative number of circular kivas in ruins and in modern 

 inhabited pueblos where the circular form of room is found is larger 

 in the ruins than in the inhabited pueblos. The proportionate num- 

 ber of circular rooms to secular rooms in cliff-dwellings of the JNIesa 

 Verde is also larger than in pueblo ruins like those of the Chaco. 

 Apparently the older the pueblo the greater the relative number of 



