fewkes] PREHISTORIC VILLAGES, CASTLES, AND TOWERS 19 



Bun Mesa Uuin 



The author was guided by Mr. H. S. Merchant to a village ruin, 

 one of the largest visited, situated a few miles from his ranch house. 

 This village is about 10 miles due south of the store at the head of 

 Dove Creek, and consists of several large mounds, each about 500 

 feet long, arranged parallel to each other, and numerous isolated 

 smaller mounds. Nor far from this large ruin there is a prehistoric 

 reservoir estimated as covering about 4 acres. Many circular depres- 

 sions, indicated kivas, and lines of stones showed tops of buried rec- 

 tangular rooms. Excavations in a small mound near this ruin were 

 conducted by Doctor Prudden. 1 



The canyon which heads near the corral on the road to Merchant's 

 house revealed no evidence of prehistoric dwellings. 



Mitchell Sprinu Ruin 



This ruin takes its name from the earliest known description of it 

 by Morgan, 2 which was compiled from notes by Mr. Mitchell, one of 

 the early settlers in Montezuma Valley. Morgan's account is as 

 follows : 



"Near Mr. Mitchell's ranch, and within a space of less than a mile 

 square, are the ruins of nine pueblo houses of moderate size. They 

 are built of sandstone intermixed with cobblestone and adobe mortar. 

 They are now in a very ruinous condition, without standing walls in 

 any part of them above the rubbish. The largest of the number is 

 marked No. 1 in the plan, figure 44, of which the outline of the 

 original structure is still discernible. It is 94 feet in length and 47 

 feet in depth, and shows the remains of a stone wall in front inclosing 

 a small court about 15 feet wide. The mass of material over some 

 parts of this structure is 10 or 12 feet deep. There are, no doubt, 

 rooms with a portion of the walls still standing covered with rubbish, 

 the removal of which would reveal a considerable portion of the 

 original ground plan." 



The author paid a short visit to the Mitchell Spring village and by 

 means of Morgan's sketch map was able to identify without difficulty 

 the nine mounds and tower he represents. The village at Mitchell 

 Spring differs from that at Mud Spring and at Aztec Spring mainly 

 in the small size and diffuse distribution of the component mounds 

 and an absence of any one mound larger than the remainder. It 

 had, however, a round tower, but unlike that at Mud Spring village, 

 this structure is not united to one of the houses. The addition of 

 towers to pueblos, as pointed out by Doctor Prudden 3 several years 

 ago, marks the highest development of pueblo architecture as shown 



1 Memoirs Amer. Anthrop. Asso., vol. v, no. 1, 1918. 



2 Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines. Cont. N. Amer. Elhn., vol. iv, pp. 1S<M90, 1831. 



3 Prudden excavated a unit-type ruin from one of the Mitchell Spring mounds. (Amer. Anthrop., vol. 

 xvi, no. 1, 1914.) 



