202 ABORIGINAL REMAINS IN VERDE VALLEY. [eth.ann.IS 



ground plan shows a number of places wliere the walls are still visible, 

 but they extend only a few inches above the debris. There were about 

 forty rooms, and the plan is characterized by irregularities such as 

 have already been noticed in other plans. Although the village was of 

 considerable size it was built up solidly, and there is no trace of an 

 interior court. It will be noticed that the rooms vary much in size, and 

 that many of the smaller rooms are one half the size of the largerones, 

 as though the larger rooms had been divided by partitions after they 

 were completed. It is probable that rooms extended partly down the 

 slope on the west and south of the \nllage toward the little creek before 

 mentioned, but if this were the case all evidences have long since been 

 obliterated. 



On the southern side of the village the ground plan shows a bit of 

 curved wall. It is doubtful whether this was an actual wall or merely 

 a terrace. If it was a wall it is the only example of curved wall found 

 in the region in ruins of this class. Between this wall or terrace and 

 the adjoining wall on the north, with w;hich it was connected, the 

 ground is now filled in. Whether this filling occurred prior or subse- 

 ([uent to the abandonment of the village does not appear. The north- 

 eastern corner of the ruin is marked by a somewhat similar feature. 

 Here there is a line of wall now almost obliterated and but feebly 

 marked by debris, and the space between it and the village proper is 

 partly filled in, forming a low terrace. Analogous features are found 

 in several other ruins in this region, notably in the large ruin near 

 Limestone creek. It should be noted in this connection that Mr. E. W. 

 Nelson has found that places somewhat similar to these in the ruins 

 about SiJringerville, New Mexico, always well repaid the labor of exca- 

 vation, and he adopted as a working hypothesis the assumption that 

 these were the burial places of the village. Whether a similar condi- 

 tion would be found in this region can only be determined by careful 

 and systematic excavation. 



The village did not occupy the whole of the mesa point on which it is 

 located; on the east the ground rises gently to the foothills of the 

 Mazatzal range, and on the south and west it slopes sharply down to 

 the little creek before mentioned; while on the north there is a terrace 

 or flat open space some 60 feet wide and almost parallel with the longer 

 axis of the village. This open space and the sharp fall which limits it 

 on the north is shown on the ground plan. The general view of the same 

 feature (plate xv) also shows the character of the valley of the East 

 Verde above the ruin ; the stream is here confined within a low walled 

 canyon. This open space formed a part of the village and doubtless 

 occupied the same relation to it that interior courts do to other villages. 

 Its northern or outer edge is a trifle higher than the space between it 

 and the village proper and is marked by several large bowlders and a 

 small amount of debris. It is possible that at one time there was a 

 defensive wall here, although the ground falls so suddenly that it is 

 almost impossible to climb up to the edge from below without artificial 



