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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



VOL. 68 



PREHISTORIC RUINS IN SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO AND 

 SOUTHEASTERN UTAH 



The country south and southwest of Dolores, Colorado, contains 

 many evidences of a considerable population in prehistoric times. The 

 most striking of these evidences are mounds of stones, remains of 

 well-constructed buildings, the standing walls of which sometimes 

 rise many feet above the surface. Some of these remains are men- 

 tioned or described by Newberry, Jackson, Holmes, Morgan, Morley, 

 Moorehead, Prudden, and Kidder, but a still greater number remain 

 unrecorded, although reported by cowboys and sheep herders, who, 



Fig. 112. — Lone Pine House, cliff-dwelling near Dolores. Photograph by 



J. Wirsula. 



w^hile paying only casual attention to them, know their sites and some- 

 thing of their superficial characters. 



The growing interest in the antiquities of this part of Colorado, 

 especially those of the Mesa Verde National Park, not far distant, 

 has stimulated a desire to investigate other ancient ruins in the 

 neighborhood, and with that end in view Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, 

 ethnologist, devoted several weeks of the autumn of 1917 to an 

 archeological examination of this region. He visited all ruins pre- 

 viously recorded and was able to add several others to the list, without 

 covering more than a part of the extensive territory. 



The main object of this work, all too inadequate on account of 

 limited time, was to gather facts bearing on the distribution of pre- 

 historic inhabitants in southwestern Colorado and their cultural rela- 



