292 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 5° 



of the surrounding plain. These mounds, of which there is only 

 one at Casa Grande, are supposed to be communal wells. 



4. Mounds made up of refuse, sometimes sparsely covered with 

 fragments of pottery. This type of mound passes without structural 

 differences into the last class. 



5. Earth mounds or chance accumulations of earth, without pot- 

 tery fragments or other objects of human manufacture. 



The first two classes of mounds under consideration are spoken of 

 in the plural, as Great Houses (Casas Grandes) by many of the early 

 visitors. For instance, Mange, a military officer who accompanied 

 Kino, after having mentioned these Great Houses, says of one of 

 them : "One of the houses is a great building." This he proceeds to 

 describe so graphically that there can be no doubt that he has in 

 mind the building we now call Casa Grande. 1 There were evidently 

 other great houses standing near it when Mange visited the place, 

 as he speaks of twelve other buildings in sight of the main house. 

 The name Casa Grande is now applied to but one building, while the 

 name "Casa Grande group" refers to the whole cluster of houses 

 which were known to earlv writers as the "Casas Grandes of the 

 Gila." 



The mounds of the first two of these classes which were excavated 

 were formed by ruined houses covered with debris so great in quan- 

 tity that the walls were almost completely concealed, although in the 

 latter part of the seventeenth century, when Casa Grande was first 

 visited, both the surrounding walls and enclosed rooms were plainly 

 visible. When the work here described began nothing could be seen 

 but the rooms of the main building and three fragments of walls 

 projecting above the ground (plates xxiii, xxiv). 



It is difficult to determine exactly the source of the great quantity 

 of debris forming the mounds that conceal the walls of the pre- 

 historic buildings of the Gila Valley. This material is largely adobe 

 mixed with small pebbles, forming a grout like that of which the 

 walls themselves are constructed, and probably consists of fallen 



1 Between the visits of the discoverer, Father Kino, in 1694, and Major 

 Emory, the first American to describe them, in 1847, there was considerable 

 change in the general appearance of the Casas Grandes of the Gila. The 

 falling in of walls and the consequent filling up of rooms progressed rapidly 

 after once the walls began to crumble. There has been little change in the sky- 

 line of Casa Grande since 1847, judging from Stanley's excellent view of the 

 south wall, reproduced in Emory's Report, but sections of the east and south 

 wall fell when the building was repaired a few years ago, considerably altering 

 the appearance of the eastern side. 



