4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 68 



several men to carry one of these stones from the quarry to its place 

 in the wall, they might be called megaliths. 



The fine spring at the base of the cliff below Fire House was 

 evidently vised by the inhabitants for drinking water, and the trail 

 from here to a gateway in the outer wall is still well marked. As one 

 climbs from the spring to the top of the plateau the way passes 

 between the cliff and a flat stone set on edge and pierced with a hole 

 about 5 feet above the pathway. This stone was evidently a means 

 of defense; behind it the warriors may have stood peering down 

 upon their enemies through this orifice. Near it are pictographs of 

 unknown meaning. 



The circular form of Fire House (fig. i) and its well-constructed 

 surrounding wall are more characteristic of eastern than of western 

 pueblo masonry. This round type ' is found from southern Colorado 

 on the north to the neighborhood of the Zuiii settlements on the 

 south ; it has not been reported from the region on both banks of 

 the Rio Grande. Roughly speaking, circular ruins correspond, in 

 their distribution, with a line extending north-south midway between 

 the eastern and western sections of the pueblo area — a limitation that 

 can hardly be regarded as fortuitous. Its meaning we may not be 

 able to correctly interpret, but the fact calls for an explanation. The 

 type is old, the modern pueblos having abandoned this form. The 

 area where circular ruins occur corresponds, in a way, to that 

 inhabited in part by the modern Keres, none of whom, however, now 

 dwell in circular towns. Provisionally we shall consider the Keresan 

 pueblos as the nearest of all descendants of those who once inhabited 

 villages of circular or oval form, a generaHzation substantiated by 

 the existence of words of Keres language in many old ceremonies 

 among all the pueblos. 



There is a sharp line of demarcation between the zone of circular 

 ruins and that inhabited by the piieblos along the Rio Grande, but 

 on the western border these circular buildings extend as far west 

 as the Hopi country. 



In attempting to connect the oval form of Fire House with the 

 rectangular form of Sikyatki we are met with the difficulty of 

 architectural dissimilarity. Fire House is circular, Sikyatki is rec- 

 tangular. If the descendants of the inhabitants of Fire House later 



^ An able discussion of the pueblo problems is found in the excellent compila- 

 tion of Fritz Krause, Die Pueblo-Indianer, Fine historish-ethnographische 

 Studie. Nova Acta Kaiserl. Leop. Carol. Deutschen Akademie der Natur- 

 forschern. Vol. 87, No. i, 1907. 



