26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 65 
countless rats’ nests. A wooden slab, an incised flat stone, and a few 
potsherds were the only artifacts found. Smoke stains on the cave 
- roof and the presence of a number of animal bones in the refuse 
behind the rear wall seem to show that this house had been a living 
place rather than a granary. On the cliff a few yards farther up 
the canyon were pictographs of serpents, a mountain sheep, and 
numerous handprints, all done in white paint. (See pl. 95, a.) 
Watchtower (%) (see fig. 1) —Watchtowers, so common in the Mc- 
Elmo, Mesa Verde, and Montezuma Creek regions, seem to be rare 
in the Monuments district. A possible one was found, however, on 
the top of the southernmost of three high buttes that rise from the 
mesa opposite Ruin 2. A photograph taken from the Ruin 2 cave 
(pl. 7) shows these buttes and gives also a good idea of the broken 
character of the country. The place 
was chanced upon while we were 
searching for a vantage point from 
which to secure a panoramic photo- 
graph of the valley. The top of the 
butte is flat, the sides for the last 40 
feet precipitous or even overhanging, 
and the summit attained only by a 
difficult scramble of 10 or 15 feet up a 
crack in the rocks. Although the site 
would seem to have been quite safe 
from attack without any. fortification, 
low walls of rough slabs were built 
on each side of the entryway (fig. 7), 
perhaps to give protection from ar- 
=! rows. The lookout proper, if such it 
BUG t= © lat eM iCat ower: was, is a little round structure, 4 feet 
6 inches in diameter, backed up against a jut of the rock. 
Its walls are 20 inches thick, made of rough stones piled on 
each other without mortar; they now stand 18 inches high, and 
from the small amount of fallen stones can never have exceeded 
2 feet (pl. 6, ¢). The opening, or doorway, faces northwest. There 
had evidently never been a roof, the low walls having served merely 
as a windbreak. In the enclosure were a couple of inches of blown 
sand and a few rocks from the walls. A careful search of the whole 
summit revealed only a few quartz chips and a single plain gray 
potsherd. 
‘ENTRANCE 
This structure was probably either a lookout place or a shrine. It 
would have answered admirably for the former purpose, as it com- 
mands an unparalleled view out over the whole region and is quite 
impregnable. On the other hand, the tendency of the ancient people 
