MINDELEFF] CLASSIFICATION OF CLIFF RUINS 93 
the occasion for such use was passed, returned to their original homes, 
or to others constructed like them, may explain some of the cliff ruins, 
but if applicable at all to those of De Chelly, it applies only to a small 
number of them. 
The ruins of De Chelly show unmistakably several periods of occu- 
pancy, extending over considerable time and each fairly complete. They 
fall easily into the classification previously suggested, and exhibit 
various types, but the earliest and the latest forms are not found. In 
the descriptions which follow the classification below has been employed: 
I—Old villages on open sites. 
Il—Home villages on bottom lands. 
I1J—Home villages located for defense. 
IV—Cliff outlooks or farming shelters. 
I—OLD VILLAGES ON OPEN SITES 
In the upper part of the canyon, and extending into what we may 
call the middle region, there are a number of ruins that seem to be out 
of place in this locality. They are exactly similar to hundreds of ruins 
found in the open country; such, for example, as the older villages of 
Tusayan, located on low foothills at the foot of the mesa, and the 
peculiar topographic characteristies of the location have not made the 
slightest impression on them. These ruins are located on gentle slopes, 
the foothills of the talus, as it were, away from the cliffs, and are now 
marked ouly by scattered fragments of building stone and broken pot- 
tery. The ground plans are in all cases indistinguishable; in only a few 
instances can even a short wall line be traced. They seem to have been 
located without special reference to large areas of cultivable land, 
although they always command small areas of such land. There is a 
remarkable uniformity in ruins of this type in character of site oecu- 
pied, outlook, and general appearance. They are always close to the 
stream bed, seldom more than 10 or 12 feet above it, and the sites were 
chosen apparently without any reference to their defensibility. A typ- 
ical example occurs at the point marked 60 on the detailed map (plate 
XLII), another occurs at 58, and another at 52. One of the largest exam- 
ples is in the lower part of the canyon. At the junction of Del Muerto 
there is a large mass of rock standing out alone and extending nearly 
to the full height of the canyon walls. On the south it is connected 
with the main wall back of it by a low tongue of rock, sparsely covered 
in places by soil and sand, and on the top of this tongue or saddle 
there is alarge ruin of the type described, but no ground plan can now 
be made out. Possibly the obliterated appearance of this ruin and 
of others of the same class is due to the use of the material, ready to 
hand and of the proper size, in later structures. It is known that a 
similar appearance was produced in Tusayan by such a cause. The 
old village of Walpi, on a foothill below the mesa point and the site of 
the village at the time of the Spanish conquest, presents an appear- 
ance of great antiquity, although it was partly oceupied so late as fifty 
