218 ANTIQUITIES OF THE VERDE AND WALNUT CREEK ([eru. ann. 28 
them and the plan of the structures themselves support this hypothesis. That they 
were connected with the permanent stone villages is evident from their comparative 
abundance about each of the larger ones, and that they were constructed in a less 
substantial manner than the home pueblo is shown by the character of the remains, 
The resemblances of forts and accompanying habitations of the 
upper Verde and Walnut Canyon to those about Prescott, on Granite 
Creek, the Hassayampa, Agua Fria, and in other valleys of northern 
and central Arizona, and to similar structures in the valleys of the 
Gila and Salt and their tributaries, have led the author to include the 
structures of the first-named group in a culture area which reached 
its most specialized development in the neighborhood of the present 
towns of Phoenix and Mesa City, and at Casa Grande. 
It is the author’s conviction that the people who built the forts and 
terrace habitations! on Agua Fria, Hassayampa, and Granite Creeks 
were the “‘frontiersmen’’ of those who occupied formerly the Gila and 
Salt River Valleys, where they constructed the great compounds, or 
communal buildings, like Casa Grande. 
Clans of these people migrating northward met other agricultural 
tribes which had drifted from the Rio Grande pueblo region to the 
Little Colorado and its tributary, Zufi River, and became amalga- 
mated with them. Lower down the river they settled at Homolobi, 
near Winslow, which later was abandoned, some of the clans continu- 
ing northward to the Hopimesas. These people, the ancestors of the 
so-called Patki clans of the modern Hopi, followed in their northern 
migrations the Tonto and Verde Rivers. Some of those who went up 
the Verde branched off to the Little Colorado, but others continued 
along the banks of the former stream, sending offshoots along its upper 
tributaries, and at last entered the Chino Valley, where they met 
clans moving eastward. Many northern migrants followed the Has- 
sayampa and the Agua Fria. As these clans entered the mountain 
canyons, measures for protection necessitated construction of the 
many hilltop forts and other defenses whose remains are still found. 
The general characteristics of the trincheras on Walnut Creek and 
the upper Verde suggest similar structures overlooking the valleys of 
the Gila and Salt. There are of course in the Walnut Creek area no 
large “compounds” with walls made of natural cement (caliche), for 
this region does not furnish material adapted to such construction. 
The trincheras,? like those near Caborea and Magdalena in Sonora, 
or Chakyuma near Tucson, closely resemble the fortified hilltops along 
the Agua Fria, at Indian Hill near Prescott, and in the Chino, upper 
Verde, and Walnut Creek sections. Associated with these defenses 
are found on the terraces along the rivers in these regions rows of 
foundation stones, from which once rose walls of mud on a frame- 
1 There are also remains of irrigation ditches in this neighborhood. 
2 The “‘fort’’ is for the greater part a more compact structure than the trinchera; it is more nearly rec- 
tangular in form but the walls of the two types are practically identical in character. 
