222 ABORIGINAL REMAINS IN VERDE VALLEY. [eth. a.sn. 13 



Storage cists are also sometimes excavated in the exterior walls of 

 tlie cliffs, and occasionally they are partly excavated and partly in- 

 closed by a rongli, seniicirenlar wall. An example of the latter type is 

 shown in flgnre 290. 



As a rule the cavate lodges are set back slightly from the face of 

 the bluff and connected with it by a narrow passageway. Another 

 type, however, and one not uncommon, has no connecting passageway, 

 but instead opens out to the air by a cove or nook in the bluff. This 

 cove was used as the main I'oom and the back rooms opened into it in 

 the usual way b3' passageways. A number of lodges of this type can 

 be seen in the eastern side of the northern promontory or bluff. Pos- 

 sibly lodges of this type were walled in front, although walled fronts 

 are here excei)tional, and some of them at least have been produced by 

 the falling off of the rock above the doorway. The expedient of wall- 

 ing up the front of a shallow cavity, commonly practiced in the San 

 Juan region, while comparatively rare in this vicinity, was known to 

 the dwellers in these cavate lodges. At several points remains of front 

 walls can be seen, and in two instances front walls remain in place. 

 The masonry, however, is in all cases very rough, of the same type as 

 that shown in plate xxviii. 



In this connection a comparison with the cavate lodges found in 

 other regions will be of interest. In 1875 Mr. W. H. Holmes, then 

 connected with the Hayden survey, visited a number of cavate lodges 

 on the Eio San Juan and some of its tributaries. Several groups are 

 illustrated in his report. ' Two of his illustrations, showing, respec- 

 tively, the open front and walled front lodges, are reproduced in plates 

 XXIX and xxx. The open front lodges are thus described: 



1 observed, in approachinf? from above, that a ruined tower stood near the brink 

 of the cliff, at a i)oint where it curves outward toward the river, and in studying 

 it with my glass detected a number of cave-like openings in the cliff face about half- 

 way up. On examination, I found them to have been sh.aped by the hand of man, 

 but so weathered out and changed by the slow process of atmospheric erosion that 

 tlie evidences of art were almost obliterated. 



The openings are arched irregularly above, and generally quite shallow, being 

 governed very much in contour and depth by the cjuality of the rock. The work of 

 excavation has not been an extremely great one, even with the imperfect imple- 

 ments that must have been used, as tlie shale is for the most part soft and friable. 



A hard stratum served as a Hoor, and projecting in many places made a narrow 

 platform by which the inhabitants were enabled to pass along from one house to 

 another. 



Small fragments of mortar still adhered to the firmer parts of the walls, from 

 which it is inferred that they were at one time plastered. It is also extremely prob- 

 able that they were walled up in front and furnished with doors and windows, yet 

 no fragment of wall has bceii preserved. Indeed, so great has been the erosion that 

 many of the caves have been almost obliterated, and are now not deep enough to 

 give shelter to a bird or bat. 



Walled fronts, the author states, were observed frequently on the 

 Rio Mancos, where there are many well-preserved specimens. He 



I 



'Tenth Ann. Eep. U. S. Geol. Survey, 1876, pp. 288-391. 



