NO. 12 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I917 III 



late buildinos, cliff-houses, and other domiciles. In the progress of 

 this work one or two excursions were made into L^tah to Cross 

 Canyon west of the Yellow Jacket, where extensive ruins of char- 

 acteristic type await investigation, but no attempt is made to include 

 the results of these trips in this account. Naturally, since the eastern 

 part of the area considered has been thickly settled by white men for 

 a considerable time the prehistoric ruins in this region are more 

 dilapidated than those on the public domain farther west. There 

 appears, however, to have been a close similarity in the buildings of 

 the eastern and western parts of the area; existing- differences 

 being due rather to nature of sites than to cultural causes. The 



•if 



». 







Fig. 116. — Aztec Springs Ruin. Photograph by J. Wirsula. 



western ruins are the better preserved, and can be used to interpret 

 the buried walls of eastern mounds, where little now remains visible 

 except piles of fallen stones, but a satisfactory intepretation must 

 await verification by the uncovering of their walls. 



Aside from one or two clift'-dwellings (fig. 112) the ruins near 

 Dolores crown low hills on the left bank of the river, and are much 

 dilapidated. If they are compared with ruins in the Hovenweep it 

 appears that their buried walls had circular D-shaped forms. One 

 of these hill-ruins situated about three miles from town, in plain sight 

 from the Alonticello road that practically follows the old Spanish 

 trail, is the ruin referred to in the brief notice that appears in the 

 diary of Fathers Dominguez and Escalante, dated 1776, and is 

 probably the first Colorado ruin mentioned in historical documents. 



