Near where the Mimbres leaves the hills and, after spreading out, is
lost in the sand, there was formerly a “station,” on the mail route,
called Mimbres, but now known as Oldtown. Since the founding of Deming,
the railroad center, the stage route has been abandoned and Mimbres
(Oldtown) has so declined in population that nothing remains of this
settlement except a ranch-house, a school-house, and a number of
deserted adobe dwellings.
Oldtown lies on the border of what must formerly have been a lake and
later became a morass or cienega, but is now a level plain lined on one
side with trees and covered with grass, affording excellent pasturage.
From this point the water of the Mimbres River is lost, and its bed is
but a dry channel or arroyo which meanders through the plain, filled
with water only part of the year. In the dry months the river sinks
below the surface of the plain near Oldtown reappearing at times where
the subsoil comes to the surface, and at last forms Palomas Lake in
northern Mexico.
In June, when the author visited Oldtown, the dry bed of the Mimbres
throughout its course could be readily traced by a line of green
vegetation along the whole length of the plain from the Oldtown site to
the Florida Mountains.[14]
The locality of emergence of the Mimbres from the hills or where
its waters sink below the surface is characteristic. The place is
surrounded by low hills forming on the south a precipitous cliff,
eighty feet high, which the prehistoric inhabitants chose as a site
of one of their villages; from the character and abundance of pottery
found, there is every reason to suppose this was an important village.
The Oldtown ruin is one of the most extensive seen by the author during
his reconnaissance in the Deming Valley, although not so large as some
of those in the Upper Mimbres, or on Whiskey Creek, near Central.
Although it is quite difficult to determine the details of the general
plan, the outlines of former rectangular rooms are indicated by stone
walls that may be fairly well traced. There seem to have been several
clusters of rooms arranged in rows, separated by square or rectangular
plazas, unconnected, often with circular depressions between them.
There is considerable evidence of “pottery hunting” by amateurs in
the mounds of Oldtown, and it is said that several highly decorated
food bowls adorned with zoic figures have been taken from the rooms.
It appears that the ancient inhabitants here, as elsewhere, practised
house burial and that they deposited their dead in the contracted
position, placing bowls over the crania (fig. 1).[15]
[Illustration: FIG. 1.—Urn burial. (Schematic.)]
The author excavated several buried skeletons from a rectangular area
situated about the middle of the Oldtown ruin, surrounded on three
sides by walls. The majority of the dead were accompanied with shell
beads and a few turquoise ornaments, and on one was found a number of
shell tinklers made of the spires of seashells. One of the skeletons
excavated by Mr. Osborn appeared to have been enclosed in a stone
cist with a flat slab of stone covering the skull. The remains of a
corner post supporting the building stood upright on this slab.[16]
In another case a skull was found broken into fragments by the large
stone that had covered it. Several skeletons had no bowls over the
heads, an exceptional feature in Mimbres burials; and in some instances
the bowl had been placed over the face. In the case of numerous infant
interments the bowl covered the whole skeleton.