220 ABORIGINAL REMAINS IN VERDE VALLEY. Ieth.asx.U 



as a room can be excavated in it nioje easily than a room of a similar 

 size could be built up with loose rock. 



The almost absolute depeudeuce of the native builder on nature as 

 he found it is well illustrated by these cavate lodges. At a point in the 

 northern wall of the northernmost canyon, shown in the diagram ( figure 

 289) and in plate xxvi, there is a small fault with a throw of about 2 J 

 feet, and the floors of the lodges west of the fault are just that much 

 lower than the floors east of it. Furthermore, where the purple-gray 

 stratum iu which the lodges occur is covered up by the rising ground 

 sui-fiice, the cavate lodges abruptly cease. In the northern and southern 

 ends of the group the talus encroaches on and partly covers the purple- 

 gray stratum, and in these places the talus has been removed from the 

 face of the rock to permit the excavation of lodges. In short, the 

 occurrence of the cavate lodges in this locality is determined absolutely 

 by the occurrence of one particular stratum, and when that stratum 

 disappears the lodges disappear. So far as can be ascertained with- 

 out actually excavating a roo'm there is no apparent difference between 

 the stratum in which the lodges occur and the other purple 8trata.;ibove 

 and below it. That there is some difference is indicated by the con- 

 finement of the lodges to that particular level, but that the dift'erence 

 is very slight is shown by the occurrence in two places of lodges jivst 

 above the principal tier, a kind of second-story lodge, as it were. I't is 

 such dittereuces in environment as these, however, often so slight as to 

 be readily overlooked, wliich determine some of tlie largest operations 

 carried on by the native builders, even to the building of some of the 

 great many-storied pueblos, and, stranger still, sometimes leading to 

 their complete abandonment. 



In the region under discussion cavate lodges usually occur in con- 

 nection with and subordinate to village ruins, and range in number 

 from two or three rooms to clusters of considerable size. Hero, how- 

 ever, the cavate lodge. is the feature which has been most developed, 

 and it is noteworthy that the village ruins tbat occur in connection 

 with them are small and unimportant and occupy a subordinate posi- 

 tion. 



There are remains of two villages connected with the cavate lodges 

 just described, perched on the points of the promontories which form 

 the mouths of tll(^ two canyons before mentioned. The location of these 

 ruins is shown in plate xxv. The one on the southern promontory is 

 of greater extent than that on the northern point, and both are now 

 much broken down, no standing wall remaining. A general view of 

 the ruin on the northern promontory is given in plate xxvii, and the 

 same illustration shows the remains of the other village on the flat 

 top of the promontory iu the farther part of the foreground. 



The cavate lodges are generally rudely circular in shape, sometimes 

 oblong, but never rectangular. The largest are 25 and even 30 feet 

 in diameter, and from this size range down to 5 or G feet and thence 

 down to little cubby-holes or storage cists. Owing to their similarity, 



