560 THE CLIFF VILLAGES OF THE RED ROCK COUNTRY. 



prove that the banks of this river and the walls of neighboring mesas 

 were formerly the sites of many and populous towns. From its junc- 

 tion with the Gila to Montezuma Well, several miles north of Old Camp 

 Verde, there had been described a succession of ruins indicative of 

 former habitations. But Montezuma Well is a long distance from 

 anyTusayan ruin, and between it and the Moki country is situated the 

 rugged, untrodden land called the Red Rock country. There was, in 

 other words, a break here in the almost continuous series of ruins from 

 Tusayan as far south at least as the large forgotten towns of the Gila 

 Valley. At either extremity the chain of aboriginal dwelling places 

 was unbroken, but middle links were wanting. 



All conditions imply former habitations among these untrodden fast- 

 nesses of the Red Rocks, and the existence of former villages had been 

 vaguely reported by ranchmen. So far as the evideuce went, these 

 reports confirmed my suspicions, but no archaeologist had examined 

 the ruins and their character was problematical. The color of the 

 rocks of this country, as implied in the name, fulfilled the Tusayan 

 legend of Palatkwabi, the Red Land, and it was situated directly 

 south of ancient Tusayan ruins. When the opportunity came to me to 

 conduct an archaeological expedition, I determined to penetrate into 

 this broken, inaccessible region and discover whether it, too, possessed 

 ruined villages related to those of the Rio Verde and the Tusayan 

 province, thus completing the chain of aboriginal abandoned towns 

 from the Gila Valley to the Moki country. It remains for me to show 

 in this report that the discoveries which were made by me in this region 

 prove that it was in old times the site of a flourishing population, and 

 to point out that the character of the people, as indicated by archaeo- 

 logical evidences, bore many similarities to those of the ancient people 

 of Tusayan. 



Having demonstrated that the known ruins of the Verde Valley 

 were continued into the Red Rock country, it was desirable to compare 

 them with those at the two ends of the series — the Verde ruins and 

 those of Old Tusayan. This necessitated reexamination of ruins already 

 known, near Camp Verde, and a careful exploration of ancient Tusayan 

 towns. The former work was carried on in the early part of June ; 

 the latter in July and August. I entered the Verde Valley by way of 

 Prescott and the military post, Camp Verde, following the river down 

 to Squaw Mountain, and examining groups of cavate dwellings, cliff 

 houses, and ruins in the open country as far as the Red Rocks as the 

 three representative types of the former housebuilders of this inter- 

 esting valley. I then turned north and penetrated to the southern 

 border of the Red Rock country, from which I continued to Flagstaff. 

 The two Tusayan ruins which I chose as sites of my work were 

 Awatobi and Sikyatki, the former a historical pueblo destroyed at the 

 close of the year 1700; the latter a ruin deserted before the advent of 

 the Spaniards in 1540. 



