94 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



Three days were spent in the Chacuaco-Plum creek canyons farther 

 east. On a lofty butte near the Bob Dougherty ranch house a small 

 cave was cleaned out (fig. 97), yielding bone and shell disk beads, 

 small projectile points, mullers, and similar camp debris. Near the 

 upper end of the "Red Rock" exposure in Plum canyon another small 

 shelter was tested. Here, too, were seen crudely laid up walls atop a 

 small steep butte on whose lower slopes were scattered a dozen or 

 more crude boulder circles 8 to 15 feet across and up to 3 feet high. 

 Arrowheads and chipped flints were plentiful nearby but no pottery 

 was found. Similar structures are said to be fairly common on the 

 less accessible elevations of the region, and locally they are known as 

 "Indian forts." From our limited examination, an Indian provenience 

 seems more likely than the suggestion that they were left by Mexican 

 sheepherders. 



In Baca County, heart of the "dust bowl," we visited three open 

 camp sites about 20 miles south of Pritchett. From badly blown fields 

 (fig. 99) local collectors here claim to have taken Folsom and Yuma 

 artifacts and, in one instance, remains of an extinct camel. Miscel- 

 laneous flints, scrapers, knives, projectile points, and hammerstones 

 were gathered by us, but nothing of demonstrably ancient date. On 

 one site were small scattered piles of burnt and cracked stones ; others 

 showed black soil areas suggestive of hearths. All sites examined 

 were near dry watercourses or on old dried-up shallow lake beds. 



From Pritchett our party proceeded to Kenton, Okla., thence west- 

 ward up the picturesque Dry Cimarron and over to Trinidad, en route 

 making a fruitless side trip into Travaseer canyon east of Folsom, 

 N. Mex. From Trinidad, where local collections of Folsom artifacts 

 were examined, we headed east via Springfield to Lamar and Pueblo. 



In general it was found that ( 1 ) local rock shelters are mostly 

 small and shallow, giving little promise of producing cultural remains 

 as old as Folsom or Yuma are usually believed to be ; (2) local col- 

 lectors unanimously aver that such ancient remains are exceedingly 

 rare in the cave and canyon country, though many occur in the sandy 

 blown-out region from Baca County north ; ( 3 ) occasional rock shel- 

 ters do contain cultural vestiges which, while apparently not geologi- 

 cally ancient, certainly merit careful scientific scrutiny before un- 

 trained excavators destroy the record. 



