SCIENCE.-SUPPLEMENT. 



FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 1887. 



ORIGIN OF PUEBLO ARCHITECTURE. 



Nearly twenty years ago, Lewis H. Morgan 

 called attention to the false views of aboriginal 

 American civilization then current. His remarks 

 were intended to apply particularly to the higher 

 cultures of Mexico and Central America, which 

 had always been interpreted through the medium 

 of the glowing accounts of the Spanish conquerors, 

 who saw in every institution some parallel to their 

 own customs. The resulting exaggerated views of 

 Indian culture have thrown a reflected light ui^on 

 the architectural remains of the south-west. The 

 deserted pueblos scattered over a large portion of 

 New Mexico and Arizona, and extending far into 

 Utah and Colorado, have been linked with the 

 name of Montezuma and the Aztecs by the early 

 pioneers ; and the fact that our first knowledge of 

 these remains reached us through such sources 

 doubtless had much influence in fixing erroneous 

 ideas of the ancient builders. These deserted 

 groups of carefully built stone houses, occurring 

 in the midst of desert solitudes, appealed strongly 

 to the imaginations of the early explorers, and 

 stimulated their fancy to reconstruct an elaborate 

 civilization, and to connect the remains, on such 

 slender basis, with their vague notions of the 'Az- 

 tecs ' and other mysterious peoples. This early 

 implanted bias has caused the invention of many 

 ingenious theories concerning the origin and dis- 

 appearance of the builders of the ancient pueblos. 

 They have been regarded as a remarkably ad- 

 vanced people, who were swept from the face of 

 the earth by some mighty catastrophe. Their 

 ' buildings ' have been said to ' equal any in the 

 United States, if we except the Capitol ; ' and many 

 more equally absurd extravagances have been 

 uttered in connection with the ruined houses of 

 the ancestors of the present Pueblo Indians. 



The woi-k of the bureau of ethnology in our 

 south-western territories has included an examina- 

 tion of a great many of these ruins, and a com- 

 parison with the existing pueblos. In connection 

 with the latter portion of the work, many tradi- 

 tions bearing on the occupancy of the ruins by 

 their ancestors have been secured from the pres- 

 ent Pueblo tribes, connecting them clearly both 

 with many of the old village ruins and with the 

 cliff-dwellings. A number of these ruins are 

 the remains of villages that have actually been 



occupied within the historic pei'iod. Both the 

 architectural and traditional evidence are wholly 

 in accord in establishing a continuity of descent 

 from the ancient Pueblos to the present time, 

 many of the present tribes being made up of the 

 more or less scattered but inter-related descend- 

 ants of clans who in former times occupied the 

 villages whose remains are looked upon to-day as 

 the homes of ' Aztec colonies,' etc. 



The complete adaptation to the peculiar environ- 

 ment displayed by this system of architecture 

 would indicate that it had long been practised 

 under the same conditions that now prevail in 

 this region, and which still affect the building- 

 methods of the modern Pueblo Indians. A vast 

 number of these pueblos have been constructed of 

 the tabular sandstone found in natural quarries 

 at the bases of hundreds of cliffs throughout these 

 tablelands. This stone naturally breaks into small 

 pieces of regular form, suitable for use in the sim- 

 ple masonry of the pueblos without any previous 

 artificial treatment. The walls themselves give 

 an exaggerated idea of the regularity of the com- 

 ponent stones, owing to the care and neatness 

 with which these are placed. The photographs 

 taken in connection v^ith the bureau's work among 

 the ruins show clearly that the material of the 

 walls was not nearly so regular as the appearance 

 of the finished masonry would suggest, but that 

 this finish depended on the careful selection and 

 arrangement of the fragments, with the best face 

 of each stone placed outwards. In the case of 

 some of the best-finished masonry, the photo- 

 graphs indicate that the core of the wall has been 

 laid up with the larger and more irregular stones, 

 and the surface afterwards brought to a finish by 

 carefully filling in and chinking the joints with 

 smaller stones and fragments, souietimes not more 

 than a quarter of an inch thick ; the whole sur- 

 face finally being reduced to a uniform face by 

 rubbing the wall with a slab of sandstone. 



Although many details, both of construction 

 and arrangement, display a remarkable adaptation 

 to the physical character of the country, yet the 

 influence of physical environment alone would not 

 suffice to produce the architectural type under 

 consideration. Another element is necessary to 

 give point and direction to such influence, in order 

 to develop the results we find. This element was 

 the necessity for defence. There are many evi- 

 dences that the Fueblo population of these south- 

 western tablelands have been subjected to the 



