LOCALIZATION OF TUSAYAN CLANS 
By Cosmos MINDELEFF 
Of the many problems which perplex the student of the cliff ruins 
and other house remains of pueblo origin in the Southwest, two are of 
the first importance and overshadow all the others. These are (1) 
the enormous number of ruins scattered over the country and (2) the 
peculiarities of ground-plan and their meaning. The two phenomena 
are so intimately connected that one can not be understood or even 
studied without the other. 
The ancient pueblo region extends from Great Salt lake to beyond 
the southern boundary of the United States and from the Grand 
canyon of the Colorado to the vegas or plains east of the Rio Grande 
and the Pecos. Within this area of about 150,000 square miles ruins 
can be numbered almost by thousands. Such maps as haye been pre- 
pared to show the distribution of remains exhibit a decided clustering 
or grouping of ruins in certain localities. Much of this is doubtless 
due to the state of our knowledge rather than to the phenomena them- 
selves; that is to say, we know more about certain regions than about 
others. Yet from the data now in hand it is a fair inference that 
ruins are generally clustered or grouped in certain localities. There 
were apparently a number of such centers, each the source of many 
subordinate settlements more or less scantily distributed over the 
regions between them. 
This distribution of ruins lends color to a hypothesis advanced by 
the writer some years ago, which affords an at least plausible explana- 
tion of the immense number of ruins found in the Southwest. The 
key to this problem is the extended use of outlying farming settle- 
ments. All lines of evidence—history, tradition, mythology, arts, 
industries, habits and customs, and above all the ruins themselves 
agree in establishing the wide prevalence, if not the universal use, of 
such settlements, as much in the olden days as in modern times, and 
as much now as ever. 
The ruins are of many kinds and varieties; no two are quite alike, 
but there are external resemblances which have led to several attempts 
639 

