FEWKES] WORK OF EXCAVATION AND REPAIR 37 
irrigation canal, resembling a modern ditch in approximately the 
same place. 
There is no considerable outcrop of rock in the immediate vicin- 
ity of Casa Grande and the neighboring plain is almost wholly devoid * 
of stones large enough to use in the construction of walls; neverthe- 
less, several rooms have stones of considerable size built into the 
foundations of their walls. 
WORK OF EXCAVATION AND REPAIR 
The excavation of the mounds of Casa Grande was conducted by 
the Smithsonian Institution by means of appropriations made by 
Congress for the purpose, the work extending through two winters 
(1906-07 and 1907-08). The first season’s field work was limited to 
what is here designated Compound A; the second to Compound B 
and Clan-house 1, together with considerable work on Compounds 
Cand D2 (PI. 5.) 
First SEASON 
COMPOUND A 
In the first season the excavations were begun at the base of the 
two fragments of walls rising from the ground at the southwest angle 
of Compound A. At the beginning of the work the writer was wholly 
ignorant of the existence of a wall surrounding the area now called 
Compound A, the object of opening the mound at the base of the 
outside fragment being to repair the base with cement to prevent its 
fallmg. With the exception of several low mounds, more or less 
scattered, the area about the historic building, Casa Grande, was 
1 Certain implements from Casa Grande, as hatchets and axes, were apparently made from stones col- 
lected in the river bed or washed into view along the arroyos. 
2 The manual work of excavation and repair was performed by Pima Indians together with several white 
men who voluntarily assisted, among whom should be mentioned the custodian, Mr, Frank Pinckley, and 
Messrs. Hugh Hartshorne, Thomas Ackerman, the late Thomas Ray, and others. 
Road building, cutting away underbrush, grading, and incidental work, necessary to open the ruin to 
visitors, consumed some time during both seasons. 
In order to aid those who wish to know when early discoverers visited Casa Grande, and to enable 
them to follow descriptions where the designations Compounds A, B, C, etc., are used in this report, 
signboards bearing that information were erected at convenient places. Wooden steps were also placed 
wherever they could facilitate mounting to the tops of the pyramids. 
The Pima workmen above mentioned were natives of the neighboring town of Blackwater, a collection 
of modern houses, settled by colonists from Casa Blanca. At the time of the discovery of Casa Grande and 
for several years thereafter, there was a Pima settlement called Uturitue (‘the corner’’), a few miles from 
Casa Grande, near the Gila. The natives were driven out of this settlement, the site of which is said to have 
been washed away as the result of a change in the course of the river. The writer has heard an old Pima 
call Casa Grande Uturituc, owing to a confusion of localities. 
San Juan Capistrano de Uturituc is thusreferred to by Father Pedro Font (1775): ‘This town consists of 
smalllodges of the kind that the Gilefos use . . . They lodged meina large hut [possibly like the ‘‘Cap- 
illa’’ on the San Pedro] which they constructed to that end and in front of it they placed a large cross, 
pagans though they were . . . In the afternoon I went to the town with Father Garces and the 
governor, Papago de Cojet, to see the fields. Their milpas are inclosed by stakes, cultivated in sections 
with fine canals or draws, and are excessively clean. They are close by the town on the banks of the river, 
which is large in the season of the freshets.”’ 
