318 CASA GRANDE RUIN. [ETH.Aira.l3 



The opeuiiig immediately below the last described is filled with d6bris 

 to the level of the liutel. Above this, however, there is a series of three 

 tiers of sticks with 6 to 8 inches of masonry between them vertically, 

 sometimes laid side by side, sometimes separated by a foot of masonry. 

 Some of these lintel poles, as well as those of the opening above it, 

 extend 3 feet into the wall, others only a few inches. The lower sides 

 or bottoms of the holes are washed with pink clay, the same material 

 used for surfacing the interior walls. Perhaps this was merely the 

 wetting used to make succeeding courses of clay stick better. This 

 opening is shown in plate lix. 



Near the middle of the northern wall there are two openings, one 

 above the other. The upper opening was finished in the same manner 

 as those already described. But two tiers of poles show above it, though 

 the top is well preserved, and another tier may be buried in the wall. 

 There are indications that the opening was closed by a block about 2 

 feet thick and flush with the outside. The height of the opening was 

 4 feet 5 inches, width at top 1 foot 4i inches, and at the bottom 1 foot 

 10 inches. It narrows a little from north to south. 



The lower opening is so much broken out that little remains to show 

 its character. There is a suggestion that the opening was only 2 feet 

 high, and there were probably three tiers of lintels above the opening, 

 the top of which was 2J feet below the roof beams, but the evidence is 

 not so clear as in the other instances. 



In the middle of the western wall, at a height of 5 feet 8 inches above 

 the first roof level, there is a large, roughly circular opening or window, 

 14 inches in diameter. This is shown in plate lx. It is smoothly fin- 

 ished, and enlarges, slightly, outward. 



CONCLUSIOISIS. 



As before stated, any conclusions drawn from a study of the Casa 

 Grande itself, and not checked by examination of other similar or 

 analogous ruins, can not be considered as firmly established, yet they 

 have a suggestive value. 



From the character of the remains it seems probable that the site of 

 the ruins here designated as the Casa Grande group was occupied a 

 long time, not as a whole, but piecemeal as it were, one part being occu- 

 pied and abandoned while some other part was being built up, and 

 that this ebb and flow of population through many generations reached 

 its final period in the occupation of the structure here termed the Casa 

 Grande ruin. It is probable that this structure did not exist at the 

 time the site was first occupied, and still more probable that all or 

 nearly all the other sites were abandoned for some time before the 

 structure now called the Casa Grande was erected. It is also proba- 

 ble that after the abandonment of the Casa Grande the ground about it 

 was still worked by its former population, who temporarily occupied, 

 during the horticultural season, farming outlooks located near it. 



