fkvs-kes] PREHISTORIC 1 VILLAGES, CASTLES, AXD TOWERS 67 



may accept the hypothesis that the conception which gave rise to it 

 was foreign to the people of the Mesa Verde and adjacent areas. It 

 would be instructive to map out the distribution of this custom which 

 was so prevalent in pottery from the Gila and Little Colorado and its 

 tributaries, and absent in that from ruins on the San Juan and 

 Mimbres. It occurs in ware from certain Rio Grande prehistoric 

 ruins, as if it were a connecting link with the ancient culture of the 

 Little Colorado. 



Of the stone implements found m this region the most characteristic 

 is the celt called tcamahia which is not found in regions not affected 

 by the San Juan culture. These objects are found from Mesa Verde 

 to the Hopi pueblos. 1 A peculiar form of prehistoric chipped chert 

 implement occurs at Mesa Verde and elsewhere in the area. A flint 

 knife in the Williamson collection at Dolores was purchased from 

 a Ute woman who said it was found on a ruin. She wore it attached 

 to her belt by a buckskin thong fastened to a bead-worked cover. 



Bone objects were mainly needles, dirks, and bodkins, presenting 

 in the main no essential differences from those repeatedly described, 

 especially by Nordenskiold in his important memoir on the cliff- 

 dwellers of the Mesa Verde. Objects made of marine shell are rare. 

 The presence of flattened slabs of stone or metates showing on the 

 surface evidences of grinding occur with human bones in many 

 localities, indicating either that a custom still extant among the 

 Pueblos of burying the metates with the dead was observed, or that 

 the burials were made under floors of these long-abandoned houses. 

 It would seem, on the former hypothesis, that these objects were 

 buried with the women, but as the condition of the skeletal remains 

 is poor the sex could not be determined by direct observation. 



The unprotected nature of the sites and the condition of the ruins 

 prevented the preservation of fragile articles like baskets and fabrics, 

 which frequently occur in caves, in one or two instances buried under 

 the floors. There is little doubt that excavations in cemeteries of 

 the open-sky ruins would reveal considerable material of this nature, 

 which would probably duplicate that which has been produced from 

 the adjacent cliff-houses. Many parts of wooden beams, mainly the 

 remains of flooring and roofs, were seen still in the walls, but these 

 as a rule were fragmentary. The ends of the timbers still adhering 

 to the walls show that they were cut into shape by stone implements, 

 aided by live embers. They appear to have been split by means of 

 wedges made of stone and often rubbed down smooth with polishing 

 instruments of the same material. The majority of these wooden 

 beams plainly show the action of fire, but no roof was intact. From 

 the size of the logs shown in fragments of beams, it is evident that 



i The use of these objects as heirlooms in the Antelope altar of the Hopi supports the tradition of the 

 Snake people that their ancestors brought them from the San Juan. 



