THE ANCIENT PEOPLES. 55 
American Indians in general, the daily life in these 
regions was not strikingly different from that in agri- 
cultural village communities in Europe at the same 
period. The more essential differences were the lack of 
domestic animals which assisted the European peasant 
in his labors and the limited commerce in America. 
According to our present information we must con- 
sider the inhabitants of these cliff ruins and the ruined 
community houses which are scattered over the South- 
west, the ancestors of the present-day pueblo people. 
Certainly the culture they developed has survived, on 
the Rio Grande, at Zuni, and on the Hopi mesas with 
no great amount of change. Whether at the time these 
ruins were populated there were peoples living in this 
region with less permanent houses, leading a nomadic 
life, we do not know. 
THe Basket MAKERS. 
In southern Utah and northern Arizona there have 
been found remains of a people for the present known as 
Basket Makers. They were accustomed to bury their 
dead in pits or cists excavated in the floors of caves. 
The protection thus afforded from moisture has pre- 
served both the bodies and the clothing and objects 
buried with them. The skulls of these Basket Makers 
are easily distinguished from those of the Cliff Dwellers 
who often occupied the same caves. The skulls are 
not deformed as are those of the Cliff Dwellers and aside 
from that they are unusually long and vaulted with a 
characteristic narrowing in front. We know nothing of 
the houses these people occupied except that they were 
too meager and temporary to survive. They were an 
agricultural people, raising corn and pumpkins. They 
appear to have hunted more and more successfully than 
did the inhabitants of the stone houses, for their cloth- 
