258 



ABORIGINAL REMAINS IN VERDE VALLEY, 



[ETH. ANN. 13 



'• /7 





regious, provided the occupancy be a long one. In the case of the 

 Tusaxaixkivas the rectangular form was imposed on tTie builders by the 

 character of tlie sites they occupied. The'r egmreiiicut lliat tlic kiva 

 ^hould be under ground, or partly under ground, was a more stringent 

 one than that it should be circular, and with the rude applianceslit 

 their command the Tusayan builders could accoinidish practically 

 nothing unless they utilized natural cracks and fi.ssures in the rocks. 

 Hence the abandonment of the circular form and also of the more 

 essential retpiirement, that the kiva should be inclosed within the walls 

 of the village or within a court; the Tusayan kivas are located indis- 

 criminately in the courts and on the" outskirts of the village, where^'^r 

 a suitable site was found, some of them being placed at a con siclef able 

 distance from the nearest house. 



It will be seen, therefore, that it is impossible to base any chronologic 

 conclusions on the presence or absence of this feature, notwithstanding 

 the undoubted priority of the circular form, except in so far as these 

 conclusions aie limited to some certain region or known tribal stock. 

 If it be assumed that the Yerde ruins belong to the Tusayan, and all 

 the^ldence in hand favors that assumption, the conclusion follows 

 that they should be assigned to a- comparatively late.petiptl i" tl'e bis- 

 tqi-y of that tribe. 



That the period of occupancy of the lower Verde valley was not a 

 long one is jiroved by the character of tlie remains and by what we 

 know of the history of the pueblo-building tribes. There are n.o very 

 large areas of tillable laud on the lower Yerde and not a large number 

 of small ones, and aside from these areas the country is arid and for- 

 bidding in the extreme. Such a country would be occupied only as a 

 last resort, or temporarily during the course of a migration. Tlie term 

 migration, however, must not be taken in the sense in which it has been 

 applied to European stocks, a movement of people en masse or in several 

 parge groups. Migration as used here, and as it generally applies to 

 ( the Pueblo Indians, means a slow gradual movement, generally without 



!any definite and ultimate end in view. A small section of a village, 

 generally a gens or a subgens, moves away from the parent village 

 ,r\ii»'T»rii^t' rnil\r n ^c^-Kxr TniTf»« A +: nnn+.lipr f.iniA Q.iiof.lipr spr».f.imi mnvpa \( 



only a few miles. At another time another section moves to 



another site, at still another time another section moves, and so on. 



These m ovements are not possible where outside hostile pr essure is' 



strong, and if such pressure is long continued it results in a reaggre- 



• gatiouof the xarious scMttrrcd settlements into one large \"illai;e. Such 



jiii brief is the process which is termed migration, and which lias cov-- 



/ ered the southwest with thousands of village ruins. Of couisc larger 



movements have occurred and whole villages have been nhamldiied in 



a day, but as a rule the abandonment of village^ was a gradiial ]ii'ocess 



often consuming years. 



Before the archeologic investigation of the pueblo region commenced 

 and when there was little knowledge extant by which travelers could 



