PEWKBS] PREHISTORIC VILLACKS, CASTLES, AND TOWERS 



61 



The ruins on this mesa arc of two kinds: small inclosures made 

 of slabs of stone set on edge and semicircular structures (fig. 18), 

 also constructed of upright stone slabs or megaliths. Three of the 

 latter have concentric surrounding walls with a "vestibule" 

 entrance ( ?) at the south somewhat like rooms at the bases of towers. 

 One of these is said by Morley and Kidder to have three concentric 

 walls. The small box-like structures are numerous, and are rudely 

 constructed, united in an imperfect ring about the circular rooms. 



In verification of the various theories that have been suggested 

 to account for these rectangular structures — their interpretation as 

 storage bins, burial places, and cremation rooms — we have no proof. 

 Similar rooms of megaliths 



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exist on Sandstone Canyon 

 and at other places to the 

 north and in Montezuma 

 Canyon to the west. The 

 rude, massive character of the 

 masonry leads me to refer 

 them to the slab-house cul- 

 ture of Kidder and the im- 

 perfect masonry suggests 

 they were habitations in a 

 period antedating that of the 

 pure pueblo culture. Such 

 fragments of pottery as were 

 found were, like the archi- 

 tecture, rude and archaic, 

 adding weight to the inter- 

 pretation that they belonged 

 to a very old epoch. 



The author regards the 

 structures made of stones set 

 on edge as very old, possibly examples of the most primitive buildings 

 in the McEhno region, antedating the pueblos with horizontal masonry 

 farther east. West of the mouth of the Yellow Jacket, especially 

 on the Montezuma Mesa, these megalithic walls are more pretentious, 

 as if this was the center of the earlier phase of house buildings. In the 

 eastern ruins these slabs of stone set on edge sometimes appear as at 

 Far View House with horizontal masonry, but more as a survival. 



Since then discovery and description by Jackson and Holmes 40 

 years ago, little has been added to our knowledge of these inclo- 

 sures, although similar remains have been reported at various points 

 from Dolores far into Utah. They are called cemeteries and crema- 

 tories by the farmers and stockmen, but skeletons or burnt bones 

 do not occur in them; the charcoal shows wood liber, and is not bone 

 ash. More knowledge must be obtained through excavations before 



Fig. 18.— Megalithic stono iuclosure, McEliuo ISlulT. 



