Walls and outlines of rooms indicated by rows of stones mark remains
of a prehistoric settlement at the base of Black Mountain, eight or
nine miles northwest from Deming. Here occur many fragments of pottery,
broken metates, and manos, and other indications of occupation by man.
On top of Black Mountain there are rude cairns or rings of stones
apparently placed there by human hands.
The fragments of pottery taken from the ruin at the base of Black
Mountain are very different from those from Oldtown and other typical
Mimbres ruins. Its color on the outside is red, with a white interior
surface decorated with black geometric designs, the border is flaring
often with exceptional exterior decoration. These bowls have broken
encircling lines—a feature yet to be found in other Mimbres pottery—and
none of the few pieces yet obtained from the ruin near Black Mountain
has animal pictures. The whole appearance of this pottery recalls old
Gila ware and suggests an intrusion from without the Mimbres region,
possibly from the north and west.
The circles of stones on the top of Black Mountain have many points of
resemblance to similar structures on hilltops near Swarts’ Ranch on the
Upper Mimbres, described by Mr. Webster, as follows:[18]
The tops of nearly all the mountains of this valley, and
particularly those here mapped, are occupied by hundreds of rock
mounds, breastworks, pits, etc. The region shown in plate 3, and
which represents an area about one mile in length and three-fourths
mile in width, exhibits 240 of these structures.... These rock
mounds are composed of more or less rounded rocks gathered from
the region, and generally weighing from four to eight pounds each;
although many are smaller: and again others weigh from twenty-five
to fifty pounds or more each. These structures are generally
circular: although at times they are ovate, and again assume an
oblong or linear marginal outline. They vary considerably in size,
although usually being only from three to four feet in diameter:
the linear ones being from six to eight feet or more in length.
Some of the larger circular mounds assume a diameter of seven to
eight feet. The height of these mounds varies considerably; but as
a rule assume a height ranging from one to one and a half feet.
The distance apart of these structures is variable; being as a
general thing from five to fifteen feet; but not infrequently they
are only two to four feet apart: at other times, however, they may
be observed to be from sixty to ninety feet or more distant from
each other.
Mr. Webster discovered on a rocky ridge near Swarts’ ruin, somewhat
higher on the Mimbres than Brockman’s Mill, seven similar earthen
pits of much interest, which remind the author of subterranean or
half-sunken dwellings. They are saucer-shaped or linear depressions,
averaging about two feet in depth; when circular they are from five to
fifteen feet in diameter the linear form in one instance being fifty
feet long. Some of these have elevated margins, others with scarcely
any marginal ridge. The western margin in one instance has a “wall of
rounded stones.”
There are similar saucer-shaped depressions near Brockman’s Mills and
elsewhere in the Mimbres, almost identical with “pit dwellings” found
by Dr. Hough near Los Lentes. These saucer-like depressions, often
supposed to have been the pits from which adobe was dug, were also
places of burial, the dead being presumably interred under or on the
floors; the original excavation being a dwelling that was afterwards
used as a burial place for the dead. Their form suggests the circular
kiva of the Pueblos and has been so interpreted by some persons.