FEWKES] ANTIQUITIES OF MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 81 



years old, and some writers have added five centuries to this guess; 

 but the nature of the evidence on which this extreme antiquity is 

 ascribed to the ruin is not warranted by the evidence available. 



No additional information was obtained bearing on current theories 

 of the causes that led the ancient occupants of the Mesa Verde cliif- 

 dwellings to adopt this inhospitable and inconvenient habitat. It 

 is probable that one and the same cause led to the abandonment of 

 Spruce-tree House, Cliff Palace, and other Mesa Verde cliff-houses. 

 The inhabitants of these buildings struggled to gain a livelihood 

 against their unfavorable environment until a too-exacting nature 

 finally overcame them. There are no indications that the abandon- 

 ment of Cliff Palace was cataclysmic in nature : it seems to have been 

 a gradual desertion by one clan after another. One of the primary 

 reasons was change of climate, which caused the water supply to 

 diminish and the crops to fail; but long before its final desertion 

 many clans abandoned the place, and drifting from point to point 

 sought home-sites where water was more abundant. All available 

 data lend weight to a belief that the cliff-houses of Mesa Verde were 

 not abandoned simultaneously, but were deserted one by one. Pos- 

 sibly the inhabitants retired to the river valleys, where water was 

 constant, and later gave up life on the mesa. But even then the cul- 

 ture was not allowed to continue unmodified by outside influences. 

 Where the descendants of Cliff Palace now dwell, or whether they 

 are now extinct, can be determined only by additional research. 



Evidence is rapidly accumulating in support of the theory that 

 the " cliff-dweller culture " of our Southwest was preceded by a 

 " pit-house culture," the most prominent feature of which is the 

 small circular or rectangular rooms, artificially excavated laterally 

 in cliffs or vertical in the ground, which served this ancient people 

 either as dwellings or for storage. The side walls of these rooms 

 were supported in some instances by upright logs, and commonly 

 clay was plastered directly on the walls of the excavations. The 

 architectural survival of subterranean rooms exists among the cliff - 

 dwellings in circular underground kivas, the variations of which are 

 so well illustrated in Cliff Palace. 



In connection with these " pit rooms," which are never large, may 

 be mentioned the large subterranean artificial excavations found scat- 

 tered over the Pueblo area of the Southwest. Such occur in the Gila 

 valley, and have been reported from the San Juan drainage; they 

 have been identified as reservoirs and also as kivas. Some of these 

 subterranean rooms are rightly identified as kivas, but others have 

 architectural features that render this interpretation improbable. 

 What their function was and how they are connected with the people 



4472G°— Bull. 51—11 6 



