Below are pictured four cliff dwellings that are typical of the many
that contain from six to twenty rooms. Most of the ruins in this group
are located high on the cliffs and often are extremely difficult to
enter.
As we drop down to the smaller ruins the actual number of ruins
increases. In the many canyons of the area almost every cave was
utilized by the Indians. There were far more small caves than large ones
and as a result there are far more of the smaller cliff dwellings.
It is not even wise to try to estimate the number of cliff dwellings
that contain from six to twenty rooms. Certainly it doesn’t take much of
a ruin to contain six rooms. No one has the slightest idea how many
there may be so we will say hundreds, which means anything from 200 up.
A village of less than twenty rooms did not house many families. It
would seem to have been a poor defensive unit for there would have been
only a few men in such a village. In most cases the location made up for
the small number of defenders. The majority were high in the cliffs and
it would not have been too difficult for a handful of men to defend a
village that could be entered only by a ladder, a toehold trail, or a
rope from the top of the cliff.
Although these villages were small, they were surprisingly well built.
Some of the outstanding masonry in the area is to be found in these
small, high ruins. Cliff Palace, the largest of the cliff dwellings,
contains excellent examples of well-cut stones, sharp straight wall
corners, well-built doors and smooth wall plaster. But the finest work
in Cliff Palace can be matched in many of the smaller ruins.
In the ruins below it is clearly evident that there was little space for
the activities of the people. In most cases the front walls rose from
the edge of a sheer cliff and there were no courts and few house roofs,
as in the larger cliff dwellings. In most of these small high villages
the daily activities were carried on either inside the houses or below
the village at the base of the cliff.
[Illustration: This unnamed cliff dwelling is in the far
southwestern corner of the park. Originally it contained two kivas
and about a dozen rooms.]
[Illustration: A small high ruin of not more than six rooms. It can
be entered only from the top by means of a rope and while it is near
park headquarters, it has not been entered in recent times.]
[Illustration: The House of Many Windows.
This ruin of one kiva and about ten rooms is in Cliff Canyon, near Cliff
Palace. It has an outstanding defensive position.]
[Illustration: A small unnamed ruin of six rooms. No kiva is in
evidence but there may be one somewhere along the base of the
cliff.]