crsuiNo] EVOLUTION OF CLIFF DWELLINGS. 349 



Occurring in the midst of tiie greater groups of northern cliff dwell- 

 ings, 110 less than somewhat more scatteringly and widely distributed 

 to at least as far south as the middle of Arizona, are remains of cave 

 dwellings of au older type. They are usually lower down in tlie cliffs, 

 although they ouce occurred also in the larger and more accessible of 

 the caverns now occupied by later cliff-house remains, underneath or 

 amid which remains they may still iu places be traced. These rude 

 and very ancient cave dwellings mark tlie beginnings of the cliff occu- 

 pancy. In all essentials they correspond to the modern cave dwellings 

 of the Sierra Madre in Sonora, Mexico, so admirably described by my 

 friend, J)r. Carl Lumlioltz, as built and still lived in by the Taraluunari 

 and Tepehuani Indians, who survive either in the state of these lirst 

 cliff dwellers of the north, or, as is more probable, have naturally and 

 independently resorted to a similar mode of life through stress of similar 

 circumstances. 



Like the Tarahumdri, these ancient people of the north at first 

 resorted to the caves during only portions of the year — during the 

 inclement season after each harvest, as well as in times of great danger. 

 At other times, and during the hunting, planting, and seed-gathering 

 seasons particularly, they dwelt, as do the Tarahumari, in rancherias, 

 the distinctive remains of which lie scattered near and far on the 

 plateaus and plains or in the wide valleys. But the caves were their 

 central abodes, and the rancherias, frequently shifted, were simply out- 

 lying stations such as are the farming hamlets of the modern pueblos. 



The earliest of these dwellings iu the caves were at first simple huts 

 disposed separately along the rear walls of these recesses in the cliffs. 

 They usually had foundation walls, approximately circular in ])lan, of 

 dry-laid stones, upon which rested upper converging courses of cross- 

 laid logs and sticks, hexagonal and i)en-like covers surmounted, as were 

 the rancherias of the open plains, by more or less high-pitched roofs of 

 thatch — here in the shelters added rather for protection from cold than 

 from storms of rain and snow. 



But in course of time, as the people dwelling, when needful, in these 

 secure retreats increased iu numbers, and available caves became filled, 

 the huts, especially in the more suitable shelters, were crowded together 

 in each, until no longer built separately, but in irregularly continuous 

 rows or groups at the rear, each divided from others by simple, gener- 

 ally sti-aight, partitions, as are the dwelling divisions of the Tai'ahumiiri 

 today. But unlike the latter, these hut-like rooms of the northern cave- 

 dwellers were still rounded outwardly, that is, each hut (where not con- 

 tiguous to or set in the midst of others, as was the case with those along 

 the front), retained its circular form. The partitions and foundation 

 walls were still built low, and still surmounted by converging cross-laid 

 upper courses of logs or saplings and roofs of thatch. As with the 

 Tarahumari, so with these earliest cliff dwellers of the north; their 

 granaries were far more perfectly constructed than their own abiding 



