pewkes] PREHISTORIC VILLAGES, CASTLES, AND TOWERS 63 



deep, or if deeper, so compact that with the best implements it is 

 very difficult to penetrate it. 



"On the west bank of the Dolores, near the second bend, I came 

 upon a cluster of these standing stones on the summit of a low, 

 rounded hill, and in the midst of a dense growth of full-grown pinon 

 pines." 



The rows of stones at this place, according to the same author, 

 were composed of undressed slabs, many of which had fallen, the 

 parallelograms averaging 3 by 8 feet in dimensions. Thin layers of 

 bits of charcoal and pottery occur in the neighborhood. The date 

 these slabs were placed upright was very early, for trees growing in 

 the inclosures were estimated to be three or four hundred years old. 

 These stones were sometimes " embedded in the sides and roots of 

 the trees." Holmes had the "impression that these places, if not 

 actually burying grounds, were at least places used for the per- 

 formance of funeral rites . . . the remains of the dead being 

 burned or left to decay in the open air." 



The interiors of the inclosures were found on excavation to be 

 filled to a depth of about a foot with soil mixed with ashes. There 

 were many fragments of pottery, and some other objects near them, 

 but nothing to indicate, as suggested by previous observations, that 

 they were burial cists or even crematories for burying the dead. No 

 charred human remains occur, but charcoal is abundant. It may have 

 been that these places were used as ovens for roasting corn or for 

 some culinary purposes, the neighboring circular rooms being pos- 

 sibly used for the same purposes as towers by the people who formerly 

 inhabited this region. They are not large enough for dwellings and 

 the soil in them is too shallow for burial purposes. They belong to a 

 type which is widely distributed over the district visited by the author. 

 Especially fine examples occur north of Sandstone Canyon district. 



At the base of the great cliff, on the top of winch the remains in 

 question are found, under the shelter of an overhanging bowlder, 

 may be seen one of the finest collections of pictography of animals 

 and human beings. Not far from the last-mentioned bowlder the 

 walls of a large pueblo can readily be traced along the banks of the 

 McElmo Canyon. In his studies of the antiquities of this region the 

 author did not penetrate west of the mouth of Yellow Jacket Canyon, 

 but he was told by stockmen and sheep herders of the existence of 

 many other rums contiguous to the road all the way from this point 

 to Bluff City. The most important of these have already been 

 described in a general way. 



