194 ANTIQUITIES OF THE VERDE AND WALNUT CREEK [eru. ayy. 28 
CLIFF-HOUSES OF THE RED Rocks 
The cavate rooms of Oak Creek here described and illustrated 
are not the only form of cliff-dwellings in the upper Verde region. 
We find there also walled houses built in caves or in recesses pro- 
tected by an overhang of the cliff, in which little or no artificial 
excavation is apparent. The largest known cliff-houses of this type 
along the upper Verde are situated in the Red Rocks, which can 
easily be seen across the valley from Jerome, Arizona. The geologic 
character of these rocks and the peculiar structure of the caves in 
which they occur impart to these cliff-houses a form resembling the 
cliff-dwellings of the Navaho National Monument in northern Arizona, 
the characteristic feature being that the rear wall and in some cases 
the side walls of the rooms consist of the cave wall. The latter walls 
are built so that their ends jom the rear wall of the cave, unlike 
pueblos, which are independent of cliffs for support so far as lateral 
walls are concerned. This type, like the ledge-houses in the Mesa Verde 
National Park, Colorado, forms a connecting link between cavate 
lodges and cliff-dwellings, the essential differences being that the 
former are artificial excavations while the latter are constructed in 
natural caves.1. In some of the rooms of cliff-houses of the most 
independent construction, the walls of the cliff constitute rear or side 
walls of the dwellings, so this feature can hardly be said to indicate any 
cultural difference; it is rather an expression of geologic environment, 
a difference that is worth consideration and may be convenient in 
classification. 
The aboriginal habitations discovered by the author in 1895 in 
the Red Rocks? belong to the type of cliff-houses rather than to that 
called cavate lodges, the latter being represented on Oak and Clear 
Creeks. 
Some of the smaller cliff-houses on the upper Verde and its tribu- 
taries have a characteristic form, approximating more closely those 
in Walnut Canyon, near Flagstaff, than they do those of the San 
Juan drainage? This difference is due largely to the character of the 
rock formation and the erosion of the cliffs in which the first-men- 
tioned dwellings are situated, but is also in part traceable to the com- 
position of the clans that once inhabited them. 
In Montezuma Castle (pl. 79), the typical cliff-dwelling in the Verde 
Valley, there are a main building and several smaller houses, which 
are duplicated on the Sycamore and other tributaries of the upper 
Verde. 
1 Several of the Verde cliff-dwellings are simply natural caves whose entrances have been at least par- 
tially walled up. The external differences between these and artificial caves closed by a front wall are too 
slight perhaps to be considered. The method of formation of the cave, whether by nature or by artificial 
means, is more important as a means of classification. 
2 See 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. 
3 The author regards these as closely related to the ledge-houses of the Mesa Verde, although exteriorly 
they are closely allied to cavate lodges and may be situated in artificially excavated caves. 
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