In Verde valley, villages, cliff houses, and cavate dwellings exist
together, and were, I believe, contemporaneously inhabited by a people
of the same culture.
These types of ancient habitations are not believed to stand in the
relationship of sequence in development; nor is one simpler or less
difficult of construction than the others. Cliff houses display no
less skill and daring than do the villages in the plain, called
pueblos. The cavate dwellings are likewise a form of habitation which
shows considerable workmanship, and are far from caves like those
inhabited by "cave men." These dwellings were laboriously excavated
with rude implements; had floors, banquettes, windows, walled
recesses, and the like. It is hardly proper to regard them, as less
difficult to construct than pueblos or cliff houses.
Cavate dwellings, like villages or cliff houses, may be single or
multiple, single or many chambered, and a cluster of these troglodytic
dwellings was, in fact, as truly a village as a pueblo or cliff house.
The same principle of seeking safety by crowding together held in all
three instances; and this very naturally, for the culture of the
inhabitants was identical. I shall consider only two of the three
types of dwellings in Verde valley, namely, the second and third
groups.
It has, I think, been conclusively shown by Mr Cosmos Mindeleff, so
far as types of the first group of ruins on the Verde are concerned,
that they practically do not differ from the modern Tusayan pueblos.
The remaining types, when rightly interpreted, furnish evidence of no
less important character. Notwithstanding Mindeleff's excellent
descriptions of the cavate dwellings of this region, already cited, I
have thought it well to bring into prominence certain features which
seem to me to indicate that this form of aboriginal dwelling was high
in its development, showing considerable skill in its construction,
and was fashioned on the same general plan as the others. For this
demonstration I have chosen one of the most striking clusters in Verde
valley.