614 ARCH^OLOGICAL FIELD WORK IN ARIZONA IN 1897. 



of houses wliicli had beea inhabited any length of time. The great 

 areas covered by these lines of bowlders, both in the Verde Valley and 

 especially in the Pueblo Viejo, would militate against their being house 

 sites, for if we regard them as house walls we would have to suppose 

 a continuous pueblo a half a mile square without a single fragment of 

 pottery near by to indicate former habitation. 



RUIN NEAR SAN JOSE. 



The plain near the Mexican settlement, San Jose, shows evidence of 

 a large ancient population, and it is no rare thing for farmers to dig up 

 pottery and other prehistoric objects when preparing their farms for 

 cultivation. There still remains, on the right bank of the irrigating 

 ditch opposite where the San Jose arroya enters it, a section of a sym- 

 metrical mound, through which run ancient walls. This mound is so 

 situated that it protects a neighboring cornfield from overflow at times 

 of freshets in the arroya, for when the San Jose is flooded the water is 

 turned from it by this mound into the canal. A considerable part of 

 the mound has thus already been worn away, leaving exposed a section 

 20 feet high, revealing its artificial character. In an examination of this 

 section we easily traced the course of the walls, and many fragments 

 of pottery were exposed from the base to the top of the mound. It 

 would have been an easy and profitable work to dig away this whole 

 hill, but the owner strongly objected to my doing so, since it would 

 destroy the embankment which turned the water from his field. It is 

 only a question of a few years when this mound will be wholly washed 

 away, as every considerable storm eats deeper and deeper into its sides, 

 and spreads the soil of which it is composed over the neigliboring val- 

 ley or washes it down to the Grila. A morning's work in the embank- 

 ment revealed a small vase and one or two other objects- Several 

 pieces of pottery were said to have been taken from it by natives of 

 the village of San Jose, which is only a short distance away. 



BUENA VISTA RUIN. 



A few miles higher up the river beyond San Jose the valley narrows, 

 and about two miles from the settlement there is a cluster of four or 

 five modern adobe homes called Buena Vista. They are situated on a 

 bluff about 20 feet above the Gila, Avith a beautiful view of the Bonita 

 and neighboring mountains. This cluster of adobes is built on the site 

 of a large ruin, commonly called the San Jose ruin, which may have 

 given the name San Jose or Pueblo Viejo to that hamlet. 



This ruin is one of the best preserved of any that was visited in the 

 valley, as there has been no great disturbance of the soil on its site, and 

 the mounds, as a rule, have not been leveled, as is generally the case 

 with those near Solomonville, Safford, Thacher, and Pima. I have 

 therefore made a map of the distribution of the mounds, but it is far 

 from satisfactory as it does not include all tbat are found in the cluster. 



