36 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull, to 



ESCALANTE RuiN 



The name Escalante Ruin, given to the first ruin recorded by a 

 white man in Colorado, is situated about 3 miles from Dolores on 

 top of a low hill to the right of the Monticello Road, just beyond 

 where it diverges from the road to Cortez. The outline of the pile 

 of stones suggests a D-shaped or semicircular house with a central 

 depression surrounded by rooms separated by radiating partitions. 

 The wall on the south or east sides was probably straight, rendering 

 the form not greatly unlike the other ruins on hilltops in the neigh- 

 borhood of Dolores. 



This is supposed to be the ruin to which reference is made in the 

 following quotation from an article in Science: 1 



"There is in the Congressional Library, among the documents 

 collected by Peter Force, a manuscript diary of early exploration in 

 New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah, dated 1776, written by two Cath- 

 olic priests, Father Silvester Velez Escalante and Father Francisco 

 Atanacio Dominguez. This diary is valuable to students of arche- 

 ology, as it contains the first reference to a prehistoric ruin in the con- 

 fines of the present State of Colorado, although the mention is too 

 brief for positive identification of the ruin. 2 While the context indi- 

 cates its approximate site, there are at this place at least two large 

 ruins, either of which might be that referred to. I have no doubt which 

 one of these two ruins was indicated by these early explorers, but my 

 interest in this ruin is both archcological and historical. Our 

 knowledge of the structure of these ruins is at the present day almost 

 as imperfect as it was a century and a half ago. 



"The route followed by the writers of the diary was possibly an 

 Indian pathway, and is now called the Old Spanish Trail. After 

 entering Colorado it ran from near the present site of Mancos to the 

 Dolores. On the fourteenth day from Santa Fe, we find the following 

 entry: 'En la vanda austral del Vio [Rio] sobre un alto, huvo anti- 

 quum (te) una Poblacion pequciia, de la misma forma q e las de los 

 Indios el Nuevo Mexico, segun manifieran las Ruinas q e de invento 

 regis tramos.' 



"By tracing the trip day by day, up to that time, it appears that 

 the ruin referred to by these early fathers was situated somewhere 

 near the bend of the Dolores River, or not far from the present town 

 Dolores, Colo. The above quotation indicates that the ruin was a 

 small settlement, and situated on a hill, on the south side of the river 

 or trail, but it did not differ greatly from the ruined settlements of 

 the Indians of New Mexico with which the writers were familiar, and 

 had already described." 



1 Fewkcs, J. W., The First Pueblo Ruin in Colorado Mentioned in Spanish Documents. Science, vol. 

 xi.vi, Sept. II, 1917. 



2 Diario y Dereotcro de las nuevas descubrimientos de tierras a los r'bos N. N. OE. OE. del Nuevo Mexico 

 por los R. R. P. P. Fr. Silvester Velez Escalante, Fr. Francisco Atanacio Dominguez, 177G. ( Vide Sen. 

 Ex. 1 )oc 33d Congress, No. 7X, pt. 3, pp. 119-127.) 



