12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY. 



Besides the routine work of his desk Mr. Hodge gave 

 what spare time he could while in Washington to continuing 

 his work on the bibliography of the Pueblo Indians. 



During July and August Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, ethnologist, 

 completed his report on the Heye collection of West Indian 

 antiquities and in the autumn made a brief archeological 

 reconnaissance in southwestern Colorado, returning to Wash- 

 ington the middle of November. His plan of operations was 

 to visit the ruins in the McElmo district and determine their 

 architectural features in order to define with greater exact- 

 ness the characteristics they share with the cliff dwellings 

 and pueblos of the Mesa Verde National Park. The object 

 was to gather material that would enalile him to construct 

 a classification of the prehistoric buildings of the Southwest 

 from structural data. The Mesa Verde cliff dwellings and 

 pueblos belong to a type or group of ruins distinguished by 

 the structure of the roof and other features of the cere- 

 monial room or kiva. The aim of the field work in 1917 

 was to investigate the distribution of this form of kiva and 

 to discover other peculiarities of the Mesa Verde type or 

 group at points remote from the plateau and thus enlarge 

 our knowledge of the geographical distribution of the types. 



It was found that the ruins in Montezuma Valley and the 

 McElmo and its tributaries show extensions westward of the 

 Mesa Verde type, and as the field work progressed much was 

 added to our knowledge of the characteristics of great houses 

 and towei's, the examples of which on the Mesa Verde have 

 been little investigated. 



The most noteworthy group of the ancient ruins visited in 

 the course of his field work were three clusters of great 

 houses, castles, and towers situated a short distance over 

 the State line on the northern tributaries of the canyons of 

 the McElmo. 



The most important result of the field work in 1917 is the 

 conclusion that the ruins of the McElmo region indicate a 

 people allied to those of Mesa Verde, who reached a high 

 degree of architectural technique, surpassing any in America 

 north of Mexico. Evidence was gathered that it was pre- 

 ceded b}' a stage indicated l>y one-house construction, and 



