Within the limits of the region here treated there are many hundreds of
sites of structures and groups of rooms now marked only by lines of
water-rounded bowlders. As a rule each site was occupied by only one or
two rooms, although sometimes the settlement rose to the dignity of a
village of considerable size. The rooms were nearly always oblong,
similar in size and ground plan to the rooms composing the village ruins
already described, but differing in two essential points, viz, character
of site and character of the masonry. As a rule these remains are found
on and generally near the edge of a low mesa or hill overlooking some
area of tillable land, but they are by no means confined to such
locations, being often found directly on the bottom land, still more
frequently on the banks of dry washes at the points where they emerge
from the hills, and sometimes on little islands or raised areas within
the wash where every spring they must have been threatened with overflow
or perhaps even overflowed. An examination of many sites leads to the
conclusion that permanency was not an element of much weight in their
selection.
Externally these bowlder-marked sites have every appearance of great
antiquity, but all the evidence obtainable in regard to them indicates
that they were connected with and inhabited at the same time as the
other ruins in the region in which they are found. They are so much
obliterated now, however, that a careful examination fails to determine
in some cases whether the site in question was or was not occupied by a
room or group of rooms, and there is a notable dearth of pottery
fragments such as are so abundant in the ruins already described.
Excavation in a large ruin of this type, however, conducted by some
ranchmen living just above Limestone creek, yielded a considerable lot
of pottery, not differing in kind from the fragments found in stone
ruins so far as can be judged from description alone.
In the southern part of the region here treated bowlder-marked sites are
more clearly marked and more easily distinguished than in the northern
part, partly perhaps because in that section the normal ground surface
is smoother than in the northern section and affords a greater contrast
with the site itself. Plate XXXIII shows one of these bowlder-marked
sites which occurs a little below Limestone creek, on the opposite or
eastern side of the river. It is typical of many in that district. It
will be noticed that the bowlders are but slightly sunk into the soil,
and that the surface of the ground has been so slightly disturbed that
it is practically level; there is not enough débris on the ground to
raise the walls 2 feet. The illustration shows, in the middle distance,
a considerable area of bottom land which the site overlooks. In plan
this site shows a number of oblong rectangular rooms, the longer axes of
which are not always parallel, the plan resembling very closely the
smaller stone village ruins already described. It is probable that the
lack of parallelism in the longer axes of the rooms is due to the same
cause as in the village ruins, i.e., to the fact that the site was not
all built up at one time.
The illustration represents only a part of an extensive series of wall
remains. The series commences at the northern end of a mesa forming the
eastern boundary of the Rio Verde and a little below a point opposite
the mouth of Limestone creek. The ruins occur along the western rim of
the mesa, overlooking the river and the bottom lands on the other side,
and are now marked only by bowlders and a slight rise in the ground. But
few lines of wall are visible, most of the ruins consisting only of a
few bowlders scattered without system. From the northern end of the
mesa, where the ruins commence, traces of walls can be seen extending
due southward and at an angle of about 10° with the mesa edge for a
distance of one-fourth of a mile. Beyond this, for half a mile or more
southward, remains of single houses and small clusters occur, and these
are found in less abundance to the southern edge of the mesa, where the
ruin illustrated occurs. The settlement extended some distance east of
the part illustrated, and also southward on the slope of the hill. Two
well-marked lines of wall occur at the foot of the hill, on the flat
bottom land, but the slopes of the hill are covered with bowlders and
show no well-defined lines. Scattered about on the surface of the ground
are some fragments of metates of coarse black basalt and some potsherds,
but the latter are not abundant.
The bowlders which now mark these sites were probably obtained in the
immediate vicinity of the points where they were used. The mesa on which
the ruin occurs is a river terrace, constructed partly of these
bowlders; they outcrop occasionally on its surface and show clearly in
its sloping sides, and the washes that carry off the water falling on
its surface are full of them.
[Illustration: Plate XXXVII.
OLD DITCH NEAR VERDE, LOOKING EASTWARD.]
In the northern end of the settlement there are faint traces of what may
have been an irrigating ditch, but the topography is such that water
could not be brought on top of the mesa from the river itself. At the
southern end of the settlement, northeast of the point shown in the
illustration, there are traces of a structure that may have been a
storage reservoir. The surface of the mesa dips slightly southward, and
the reservoir-like structure is placed at a point just above the head of
a large wash, where a considerable part of the water that falls upon the
surface of the mesa could be caught. It is possible that, commencing at
the northern end of the settlement, a ditch extended completely through
it, terminating in the storage reservoir at the southern end, and that
this ditch was used to collect the surface water and was not connected
with the river. A method of irrigation similar to this is practiced
today by some of the Pueblo Indians, notably by the Hopi or Tusayan and
by the Zuni. In the bottom land immediately south of the mesa, now
occupied by several American families, there is a fine example of an
aboriginal ditch, described later.
In the vicinity of the large ruin just above Limestone creek, previously
described, the bowlder-marked sites are especially abundant. In the
immediate vicinity of that ruin there are ten or more of them, and they
are abundant all along the edge of the mesa forming the upper river
terrace; in fact, they are found in every valley and on every point of
mesa overlooking a valley containing tillable land.
It is probable that the bowlder-marked ruins are the sites of secondary
and temporary structures, erected for convenience in working fields near
to or overlooked by them and distant from the home pueblo. The character
of the sites occupied by them and the plan of the structures themselves
supports this hypothesis. That they were connected with the permanent
stone villages is evident from their comparative abundance about each of
the larger ones, and that they were constructed in a less substantial
manner than the home pueblo is shown by the character of the remains.
It seems quite likely that only the lower course or courses of the walls
of these dwellings were of bowlders, the superstructure being perhaps
sometimes of earth (not adobe) but more probably often of the type known
as “jacal”--upright slabs of wood plastered with mud. This method of
construction was known to the ancient pueblo peoples and is used today
to a considerable extent by the Mexican population of the southwest and
to a less extent in some of the pueblos. No traces of this construction
were found in the bowlder-marked sites, perhaps because no excavation
was carried on; but it is evident that the rooms were not built of
stone, and that not more than a small percentage could have been built
of rammed earth or grout, as the latter, in disintegrating leaves
well-defined mounds and lines of debris. It is improbable, moreover,
that the structures were of brush plastered with mud, such as the Navajo
hogan, as this method of construction is not well adapted to a
rectangular ground plan, and if persistently applied would soon modify
such a plan to a round or partially rounded one. Temporary brush
structures would not require stone foundations, but structures composed
of upright posts or slabs, filled in with brush and plastered with mud,
and designed to last more than one farming season, would probably be
placed on stone foundations, as the soil throughout most of the region
in which these remains occur is very light, and a wooden structure
placed directly on it would hardly survive a winter.
In the valley of the Rio Verde the profitable use of adobe at the
present time is approximately limited northward by the thirty-fourth
parallel, which crosses the valley a little below the mouth of Limestone
creek. North of this latitude adobe is used less and less and where used
requires more and more attention to keep in order, although on the high
tablelands some distance farther northward it is again a suitable
construction. South of the thirty-fourth parallel, however, adobe
construction is well suited to the climate and in the valleys of Salt
and Gila rivers it is the standard construction. Adobe construction (the
use of sun-dried molded brick) was unknown to the ancient pueblo
builders, but its aboriginal counterpart, rammed earth or pisé
construction, such as that of the well known Casa Grande ruin on Gila
river, acted in much the same way under climatic influences, and it is
probable that its lack of suitability precluded its use in the greater
part of the Verde valley. No walls of the type of those of the Casa
Grande ruin have been found in the valley of the Verde, although
abundant in the valleys of the Salt and Gila rivers, but it is possible
that this method of construction was used in the southern part of the
Verde region for temporary structures; in the northern part of that
region its use even for that purpose was not practicable.
In this connection it should be noted that all the ruins herein
described are of buildings of the northern type of aboriginal pueblo
architecture and seem to be connected with the north rather than the
south.
[Illustration: Plate XXXVIII.
BLUFF OVER ANCIENT DITCH, SHOWING GRAVEL STRATUM.]