FEWEES] FUNCTION OF CAVATE HOUSES 543 
by two walls of masonry, which do not join. The stones are laid in 
adobe in which fragments of pottery were detected. These unjoined 
walls leave a doorway which is thus flanked on each side by stone 
masonry, recalling in every particular the well-known walls of cliff 
houses. Here, in fact, we have so close a resemblance to the masonry 
of true cliff houses that we can hardly doubt that the excavators of 
the cavate dwellings were, in reality, people similar to those who built 
the cliff houses of Verde valley. 
Room VIIJ7 is a simple cave hewn out of the rock, with a chamber 
behind it, entered by a passageway made of masonry, which partially 
fills a larger opening. The doorway through this masonry is small 
below, but broadens above in much the same manner as some of the 
doorways in Tusayan of today. 
Continuing along the left bank of the river, from the row of cavate 
rooms, just described, on the first mesa, we round a promontory and 
enter a small canyon,! which is perforated on each side with numer- 
ous other cavate dwellings, large and small, all of the same gen- 
eral character as the type described. Here, likewise, are small external 
openings which evidently communicated with subterranean chambers, 
but many of them are so elevated that access to them from the floor of 
the canyon or from the cliff above is not possible. A marked feature 
of the whole series is the existence here and there of small, often 
inaccessible, stone cists of masonry plastered to the side of the rocky 
cliff like swallows’ nests. 
All of these cists which are accessible had been opened and plundered 
before my visit, but there yet remain a few which are still intact 
and would repay examination and study. Similar walled-up cists are 
likewise found, as we shall see later, in the clifffhouses of the Redrock 
country, hence are not confined to the Verde system of ruins. 
Cavate dwellings similar to those here described are reported to exist 
in the canyons of upper Salado, Gila, and Zuni rivers, and we may 
with reason suspect that the distribution’ of cavate dwellings is as 
wide as that of the pueblos themselves, the sole requisite being a soft 
tufaceous rock, capable of being easily worked by people with stone 
implements. In none of the different regions in which they exist is there 
any probability that these caves were made by people different in cul- 
ture from pueblo or cliff dwellers. They are much more likely to have 
been permanent than temporary habitations of the same culture stock 
of Indians who availed themselves of rock shelters wherever the nature 
of the cliff permitted excavation in its walls. 
That the cavate lodges are simple “horticultural outlooks” is an 
important suggestion, but one might question whether they were con- 
veniently placed for that purpose. So far as overlooking the opposite 
1It was from this region that the dividual chambers, described by Mindeletf, were chosen. 
2Mr Mindeleff, in his valuable memoir, has so completely described the cavate dwellings of the 
Rio Grande and San Juan regions that their discussion in this account would be superfluous. 
