The portion of the Sierra Madre plateau called Lower Mimbres, or
Antelope Valley, extends from where the Mimbres sinks below the
surface at Oldtown to Lake Palomas in Mexico, twenty-five miles south
of Deming. According to some writers this region has no prehistoric
ruins, but several of the beautiful specimens described and figured
in the present article came from this valley, and there are doubtless
many others, equally instructive, still awaiting the spade of the
archeologist. The purest form of the Mimbres prehistoric culture is
found in the lower or southern part of this plain, but it extends into
the hills far up the Mimbres almost to its source.
The plateau on which the prehistoric Mimbres culture developed is
geographically well marked, and distinguished from other regions of the
Southwest geographically and biologically, facts reflected in human
culture. The cultural gateway is open to migrations from the south
rather than from the east, north, or west.
The evidences drawn from the poor preservation of the walls of the
ruins, and the paucity of historical references to them, instead of
indicating absence of a prehistoric population suggest the existence
of a very ancient culture that had been replaced by wandering Apache
tribes years before the advent of the Spaniards. Chronologically the
prehistoric people belongs to an older epoch than the Pueblo, and its
culture resembles that which antedated the true Pueblos.[10]
The ruins here considered do not belong to the same type as those of
the Lower Gila and Salt, although they may be contemporaneous with
them, and may have been inhabited at the same time as those on the
Casas Grandes River in northern Chihuahua. Not regarded as belonging to
the same series of ruins as those on the Upper Gila and Salt rivers,
they are not designated numerically with them.
Although the indications of an ancient prehistoric occupancy of the
Mimbres are so numerous, they are so indistinct and have been so
little studied that any attempt here to include all of them would be
premature. Remains of human occupancy occur in the plain about Deming,
and can be traced northward along the river east and west into the
mountains, and south into Mexico.
The author has observed many evidences of former settlements along the
Upper Mimbres which have not yet been recorded. The indications are, as
a rule, inconspicuous, appearing on the surface of the ground in the
form of rows of stones or bases of house walls, fragments of pottery,
and broken stone implements, such as metates and manos. These sites are
commonly called “Indian graves,” skeletons often having been excavated
from the enclosures outlined by former house walls. There are also
evidences of prehistoric ditches at certain points along the Mimbres,
showing that the ancients irrigated their small farms.
No attempt is made here to consider all the ruins of the Mimbres or of
the Antelope plain in the immediate neighborhood of Deming, but only
those that have been visited, mainly ruins from which the objects here
described were obtained.
Although few of the walls of the ancient buildings rise high above
ground, they can be readily traced in several places. From remains that
were examined it appears that the walls were sometimes built of stone
laid in mortar and plastered on the inside, or of adobe strengthened at
the base with stones and supported by logs, a few of which have been
found in place upright. No differentiation of sacred and secular rooms
was noticed, and no room could be identified as belonging to the type
called kiva. The floors of the rooms were made of “caleche,” hardened
by having been tramped down; the fireplace was placed in one corner, on
the floor, and the entrance to the room was probably at one side. To
all intents and purposes these dwellings were probably not unlike those
fragile wattle-walled structures found very generally throughout the
prehistoric Southwest, and supposed to antedate the communal dwellings
or pueblos of northern New Mexico.
The two aboriginal sites in the Mimbres Valley that have yielded the
majority of the specimens here figured and described are the Oldtown
ruin and the Osborn ruin, a small village site twelve miles south
of Deming and four miles west of the Florida Mountains. There are
some differences in general appearance and variations in the minor
archeological objects from these two localities, but it is supposed
that specimens from both indicate a closely related, if not identical,
culture area.
About a year ago Mr. E. D. Osborn, of Deming, who had commenced
excavation in these ruins,[11] obtained from them a considerable
collection of pottery and other objects. His letters on the subject
and his photographs of the pottery, sent to the Bureau of American
Ethnology, first led the author to visit southern New Mexico to
investigate the archeology of the Mimbres.