MINDELEFF] RUINS OF UNUSUAL SIZE 135 
point to command the entrance to the village. The wall is exception- 
ally heavy and was pierced with oblique loopholes commanding a nar- 
row bench immediately in front of it. This appears to have been a 
purely defensive expedient, and as such is unique. 
The site commands an extensive outlook over the canyon bottom, 
including several areas of cultivable land, and while it may have been 
occupied as aregular village, such occupancy could not have been long 

Fic. 32—Ground plan of a small ruin in Canyon del Muerto. 
continued. Altogether the site and the character of the house remains 
are anomalous and doubtless resulted from anomalous conditions. 
Figure 51 is a ground plan of a large ruin in Del Muerto. It oceu- 
pied almost the whole available area of the ledge on which it is situated, 
and over 40 rooms can now be made out on the ground, in addition 
to 3 circular kivas. The settlement may have comprised between 80 
and 100 rooms, which would accommodate 15 to 20 families. The size 
is very unusual, and the presence of but 5 kivas would indicate that 
the families were closely related. There are other examples of this 
character in the canyons, but not so large as the one illustrated. 

Fic. 33—Ground plan of a small ruin. 
209 
Figure 32 illustrates a type which is more common. Here we have the 
usual arrangement of rooms along the cliff, with a kivain front of them. 
There were altogether not over 10 or 12 rooms, and they were probably 
occupied by one fainily. Figure 33 shows a kind rather more abundant 
than the last, and consisting like it of one circular kiva with rooms back 
of and between it and the cliff. Ruins of this type are generally well 
protected by an overhanging cliff. Figure 5£ is another example, in 
