MiNDELEFF] SITES AND ENVIRONMENT. 187 



difference may be due only to a different environment, necessitating a 

 change in material employed and consequent on this a change iu 

 methods, although it seems to the writer that the difference is perhaps 

 too great to be accounted for in this way. Be the cause what it may, 

 there is no doubt that there is a difference; and it is reasonable to 

 expect that in the regions lying between the southern earth-constructed 

 and the northern stone structures, intermediate types might be found 

 which would connect them. The valley of Rio Verde occupies such an 

 intermediate position geographically, but the architectural remains 

 found in it belong to the northern type ; so we must look elsewhere for 

 connecting links. The most important ruin in the lower Verde region 

 occurs near its southern end, and more distinctly resembles the northern 

 ruins than the ruins iu the northern part of that region. 



Although the examination of this region ftiiled to connect the north- 

 ern and southern types of liouse structure, the peculiar coiiditions here 

 are exceptionally valuable to the study of the principles and methods 

 of pueblo building. Here remains of large villages with elaborate 

 and complex ground plan, indicating a long ijeriod of occupancy, are 

 found, and within a short distance there are ruins of small villages 

 with very simple ground plan, both produced under the same environ- 

 ment; and comparative study of the two may indicate some of the 

 principles which govern the growth of villages and whose result can 

 be seen in the ground plans. Here also there is an exceptional devel- 

 opment of cavate lodges, and corresponding to this development an 

 almost entire absence of cliff dwellings. Prom the large amount of 

 data here a fairly complete idea of this phase of pueblo ]ife may be 

 obtained. This region is not equal to the Gila valley in data for the 

 study of horticultural methods practiced among the ancient Pueblos, 

 but there is enough to show that the inhabitants telied principally and, 

 perhaps, exclusively on horticulture for means of subsistence, and that 

 their knowledge of horticultural luethods was almost, if not quite, 

 equal to that of their southern neighbors. The environment here was 

 not nearly so favorable to that method of life as farther southward, 

 not even so favorable as in some northern districts, and in consequence 

 more primitive appliances and ruder methods prevailed. Added to these 

 advantages for study there is the further one that nowhere within this 

 region are there any traces of other than purely aboriginal work; no 

 adobe walls, no chimneys, no constructive expedients other than those 

 which may be reasonably set down as aboriginal ; and, finally, the region 

 is still so little occupied by modern settlers that, with the exception of 

 the vicinity of Verde, the remains have been practically undisturbed. 

 A complete picture of aboriginal life during the occupancy of the 

 lower Verde valley would be a picture of pueblo life i^ursued in the 

 face of great difficulties, and with an environment so unfavorable that 

 had the occupation extended over an indefinite period of time it would 

 still have been impossible to develo]) the great structures which re- 

 sulted from the settlements in Chaco canyon. 



