122 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS \'0L. 68 



were constructed, but inequalities in the base v/ere built up with flat 

 stones to the level of the lowest courses. The stones used were of 

 different sizes, well trimmed by means of stone implements. The 

 walls remain fairly stable, notwithstanding the foundations on which 

 they rest are very uneven. 



The cliff-dwellings and pueblos of the Mesa Verde National Park 

 belong architecturally to the " pure type," the characteristic of which 

 is a compact pueblo with a circular kiva with mural banc[uettes and 

 pilasters that formerly supported a vaulted roof, a ventilator with 

 air passage and deflector, and generally a ceremonial floor opening 

 called the sipapu. The same type of kiva has been observed in the 

 great consolidated pueblos of the Chaco and the cliff-dwellings in 

 the Chelly Canyon. Dr. Prudden, Dr. Kidder, and Mr. Morley have 

 recorded this type from ruins in Montezuma Valley and the McElmo- 

 Yellow Jacket and Montezuma Canyon regions, and Dr. Fewkes 

 discovered last summer that it occurs in several pueblos of the 

 Hovenweep district. The existence of this form of kiva beyond 

 the limits of the Mesa \'erde marks the extension of the prehistoric 

 area it characterizes. 



Three groups of large, well-preserved Iniildings illustrating most 

 of the types of the Yellow Jacket district occur between 40 and 50 

 miles from Dolores in a limited area which Dr. Fewkes suggests be 

 made by proclamation a National monument, to be known as the 

 Hovenweep National Monument. These groups are as follows: i. 

 Cluster at the head of Square Tower (Ruin) Canyon (figs. 121, 122 

 and 123) ; 2. Holly Canyon group (figs. 124, 125 and 126) ; 3. Hack- 

 berry (branch of P>ridge) Canyon cluster (fig. 127). The three 

 regions lie a few miles apart, not far from where the Yellow Jacket 

 empties into the McFlmo, near the Utah-Colorado State line. The 

 structure of the well-preserved buildings in these groups enables us 

 to interpret the probable appearance of the buildings, now mounds, 

 in the Montezuma Valley. 



In the first-mentioned cluster there are 1 1 different buildings 

 within a radius of half a mile. One of these, Hovenweep Castle, 

 (fig. 128), has walls that measure 66 feet long and 20 feet high. This 

 building has, in addition to towers and great rooms, two circular 

 kivas on the east end, identical in construction with those of Far 

 View House on the Mesa A^erde. 



Some of the so-called towers, as figure 130, have single, others 

 multiple, chambers, and are generally two or three stories high. Their 

 shapes are rectangular, circular, semicircular, D-shaped or oval. 



