20 TWO summers' work in PtTEBLO RCTINS [eth. ann. 22 



RUINS ON THE LITTLE COLORADO RIVER 

 General Features 



Tlie plains and mesas bonlerins the Little Colorado river and its 

 trihiilaries were sites of populous pueblos in prehistoric times. There 

 remain many descendants of this former population who now inlialjit 

 pueblos distant from that stream. The Zunis alone still live on the 

 bank of one of its tributaries, and from the source of the river 

 to its mouth the ancient pueblos have long since been deserted. It 

 is asserted liy certain Tusayan clans that their ancestors formerly 

 inhabited the pueblos now in ruins on this river, and traditionists 

 have names for these villages. The plan of the present expedition 

 was to explore ancient ruins claimed by the traditionists of the Patki, 

 Patuii, and Piba people as a former home of their families, in order to 

 determine the truth of their legends and to gather what archeological 

 data there were bearing on the prehistoric migrations of the people 

 who inhabited the western section of the pueblo area. 



The ruins along the Little Colorado do not differ greatly in general 

 character from those in the vicinity of the inhabited Hopi pueblos. 

 They are situated both in the river valley and on bordering mesas, 

 and, owing to the open character of the countrj-, are mostlj' of the vil- 

 lage type. Some of the tributaries of the Little Colorado in the Mogo- 

 llon mountains are said to be overlooked by cliff houses, several of 

 which, in Clear creek canyon, still remain well preserved, according 

 to report; but these ruins have not been investigated. 



Drifting sand has buried most of the ruins of the valley so deeplj' 

 that the walls of few of them remain standing above ground. As a 

 rule they are built on natural mounds, which, near Chevlon fork, have 

 a gravelly character. 



There is little to guide one in a determination of the probable age 

 of the ruins. No evidences of Spanish influence were detected in the 

 excavations, but this does not, of course, necessarily mean that the 

 pueblos were not inhal)ited contemporaneously with, or long after, 

 the advent of the Spaniai'ds. 



It is instructive to determine the probaljle causes of the evacuation 

 of these river villages bj^ ancestral Hopi clans. Among other influ- 

 ences, the following may be mentioned. In the legends concerning the 

 forays of the Apaches it is always recounted that they attacked the 

 Hopi pueblos from the south. Although these vigorous nomadic peo- 

 ple originally came from thf north, they seem to have earh' taken 

 possession of the portion of Arizona between modern Tusayan and 

 the sduthci'n boundaries of the Territory, raiding as they wished the 

 Pima settlements on the south, and the Ilopi on the north. The 

 exposed pueblos along the Little Colorado were poorly adapted for 

 defense, and this may have led to their abandonment. 



