fewkes] PREHISTORIC VILLAGES, CASTLES, AND TOWERS 29 



the small buildings excavated by Doctor Prudden, and that structur- 

 ally there is the same condition in it as in the pueblo ruins of Monte- 

 zuma Valley, a conclusion to which the several artifacts mentioned 

 and figured by Doctor Prudden also point. 



The same holds true of Bug Point Ruin, a few miles away, also 

 excavated and described by Doctor Prudden. Here also excavation 

 of a small mound shows the unit type, and while no one has yet 

 opened the larger mound or pueblo, superficial evidences indicate that 

 it also is a complex of many unit types joined together. Until more 

 facts are available the relative age of the small unit types as com- 

 pared to the large pueblo can not be definitely stated, but there is 

 little reason to doubt that they are contemporaneous, and nothing to 

 support the belief that they do not indicate the same culture. 



Acmen Ruin 



Following the Old Bluff Road and leaving it about 5 miles west 

 of Acmen post office, one comes to a low canyon beyond Pigge ranch. 

 The heaps of stone or large mounds cover an area of about 10 acres, 

 the largest being about 15 feet high. East of this is a circular 

 depression surrounded by stones, indicating either a reservoir or a 

 ruined building. 



The top of the highest mound (pi. 3, a) — no walls stand above the 

 surface — is depressed like mounds of the Mummy Lake group on the 

 Mesa Verde. This depression probably indicates a circular kiva 

 embedded hi square Walls, the masonry of which so far as can be 

 judged superficially is not very fine. There are many smaller mounds 

 in the vicinity and evidences of cemeteries on the south, east, and 

 west sides, where there are evidences of desultory digging; fragments 

 of pottery are numerous. 



These mounds indicate a considerable village which would well 

 repay excavation, as shown by the numerous specimens of corrugated, 

 black and white, and red pottery in the Pigge collection, made in a 

 small mound near the Pigge ranch. 



The specimens in this collection present few features different from 

 those indicated by the fragments of pottery picked up on the larger 

 mounds a mile west of the site where they were excavated. They 

 are the same as shards from the mounds in the McElmo region. 



Oak Spring House 



About 15 miles southwest of Dove Creek on Monument Canyon 

 there is a good spring called Oak Spring, near which are several piles 

 of stones indicating former buildings, the largest of which, about a 

 quarter of a mile away, has a central depression with surrounding 

 walls now covered with rock or buried in soil or blown sand. Very 

 large pinon trees grow on top of the highest walls of this ruin, the 



