3<)(j CASA GRANDE RUIN. Ieth.ann.13 



it several liuiidred yards rather than follow the usual practice of using 

 material within a few feet of the site. This hypothesis would explain 

 the largje size of the depressions, otherwise an anomalous feature. 



CASA GRANDE RUIN. 

 STATE OF PRESERVATION. 



The area occupied by the Oasa Grande ruin is iusignifl('ant as com- 

 pared with that of the entire group, yet it has attracted the greater 

 attention because it comprises practically all the walls still standing. 

 There is only one small fragment of wall east of the main structure 

 and another south of it. 



The ruin is especially interesting because it is the best preserved 

 example now remaining of a type of structure which, there is reason to 

 believe, was widely distributed througlioat the Gila valley, and which, 

 so far as now known, is not found elsewhere. The conditions under 

 which pueblo ai'chitecture developed in the north were peculiar, and 

 stamped themselves indelibly on the house structures there found. 

 Here in the south there is a radical change in physical environment: 

 even the available building material was different, and while it is prob- 

 able that a systematic investigation of this field will show essentially 

 the same ideas that in the north are worked out in stone, here 

 embodied in a different material and doubtless somewhat modified to 

 suit the changed environment, yet any general conclusion based on the 

 study of a single ruin would be unsafe, hi the present state of knowl- 

 edge of this field it is not advisable to attempt more than a detailed 

 description, embodying, however, a few inferences, applicable to this 

 ruin only, which seem well supported by the evidence obtained. 



The Oasa Grande ruin is located near the southwestern corner of the 

 group, and the ground surface for miles about it in- every direction is 

 so flat that from the summit of the walls an immense stretch of country 

 is brought under view. On the east is the broad valley of Gila river^ 

 rising in a great plain to a distant range of mountains. About a mile 

 and a half toward the north a fringe of cottonwood trees marks the 

 course of the river, beyond which the plain continues, broken some- 

 what by hills and buttes, until the view is closed by the Superstition 

 mountains. On the northwest the valley of Gila river runs into the 

 horizon, with a few buttes here and there. On the west lies a range 

 of mountains closing the valley in that direction, while toward the 

 southwest and south it extends until in places it meets the horizon, 

 while in other places it is closed by ranges of mountain blue aud misty 

 in the distance. In an experience of some years among northern ruins, 

 many of them located with special reference to outlook over tillable 

 lands, the writer has found no other ruin so well situated as this. 



The character of the site occupied by the ruin indicates that it 

 belongs to a late date if not to the final period in the occupancy of this 



i 



