Geographically the Mimbres Valley is the northern extension of the
drainage area of the large interior plateau, the lowest level of which
is occupied by Palomas, Guzman, and other so-called lakes. The Casas
Grandes, Mimbres, and other rivers contribute their scanty waters to
these lakes, which have no outlets into the sea. As a rule the thirsty
sands along the course of the river drink up the surplus waters of
the Mimbres or cause them to sink beneath the surface, to reappear
when the configuration of lower clay or rock formations forces them
from subterranean courses. Considering the similarity in climatic and
geographical conditions in the northern and southern ends of this
plateau, we would expect to find cultural likenesses in the prehistoric
inhabitants of the Mimbres and Casas Grandes valleys, but such is not
the case. The absence of relief decoration combined with painting, so
common in the pottery from the Casas Grandes region, separates the
Mimbres ware from that found far to the south.[58]
There are evidences that the course of the Mimbres River through
Antelope Plain has from time to time changed considerably, and although
a section of its bed now lies east of the Florida Mountains, the river
probably formerly made its way to the west of the same in its course to
Mexico. Modifications or changes in the bed of this river have had in
the past much to do with the shifting of population and obliteration
of prehistoric sites, either by washing them away entirely or burying
them out of sight or deeply below the surface. This concealment of
evidences of prehistoric occupancy has also been aided by frequent
sandstorms, when considerable quantities of soil have been transported
from place to place and deposited on walls or covered implements lying
on the surface of the ground. It is also possible that there has been
a slow change of climate, causing a desiccation which may have been so
widespread that the inhabitants of the plain were driven up river into
the hills where water was more abundant, but it is well to remember
that abandoned settlements or ruins exist on the banks of the Mimbres
where there is still abundant water, as well as in the plain which is
dry.
The depth of the present water level, as shown by drilling for wells,
varies in different places in the valley, but in the neighborhood of
the hills there are many springs. The configuration of the surface
of the hard clay strata lying beneath the soil here and there often
forces the water to rise to the surface, and ruins occur at points
where at present there are no signs of surface water, although at the
time they were inhabited there may have been more water.[59] Whether or
not this water was brought to certain ruins by a system of artificial
irrigation, the canals of which have been obliterated, we cannot say,
but there is only scanty evidence that the climate here, as elsewhere,
has radically changed since man occupied the valley.[60]
Although there is a remote likeness between the terraced house or
pueblo community of northern New Mexico[61] and the prehistoric houses
of the Lower Mimbres, its closest resemblance is to an antecedent type,
for it is possible that the terraced pueblo culture in the Rio Grande
Valley was preceded by another. This earlier type of habitation of
the Mimbres Valley was like the fragile-walled house of the natives
inhabiting a large part of Arizona and New Mexico before the Puebloan,
and we have evidence that this older style of building was scattered
over the present Pueblo area. There is no evidence of a terraced
dwelling or pueblo more than one story high in the Mimbres or the
inland basin in which it lies. In other words the ruins of the Mimbres
may be regarded as older than true pueblo ruins, resembling an earlier
type of dwelling that antedated, in the Rio Grande Valley, the terraced
houses.
The author does not find any architectural features in the remains
of the prehistoric habitations of the Mimbres Valley suggesting
Casa Grande compounds, or those massive buildings with encircling
walls which are characteristic of the plains of the Gila. Although
the walls of the Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua, are constructed in
the same way and out of material like those of Casa Grande on the
Gila, the architectural feature, an encircling wall of the latter,
has not yet been recognized on the Sierra Madre plateau.[62] Objects
found in the Gila ruins are somewhat different in form from those of
Chihuahua, while pottery from the Gila Valley ruins and that from the
inland plateau in northern Chihuahua is markedly different, with very
divergent symbolism. Not only do forms of stone implements of a shape
unknown in southern Arizona occur in southern New Mexico, but also
the methods of disposal of the dead differed among the two people.
The latter practised inhumation only, the other both cremation and
inhumation. The aborigines of the Mimbres Valley placed a bowl over
the head or face of the dead, a practice which, so far as known, does
not appear to have been so commonly in vogue in inhumation of the
prehistoric people of the Lower Gila plains.
The conventional geometric symbols on prehistoric Mimbres pottery are
readily distinguished from those on ware from Tulerosa, a tributary
of the San Francisco. The most significant feature of the Mimbres
pottery is that fifty per cent of the figures on it represent men or
animals, while out of a hundred bowls from the Gila not more than two
or three are ornamented with zoic designs. As we know comparatively
nothing of the pottery of the sources of the Upper Gila and that part
of its course which lies between the Tulerosa and the Mimbres, we can
at present venture very little information on ceramic relations, but
similarities or mixtures would naturally be expected, due to contact or
overlapping, the type of the one valley overlaying that of the other or
mingling with it.
The sources of the Upper Salt, the largest tributary of the Gila, lie
far from the Mimbres, and close relationship in the pottery of the
ancient people inhabiting its banks is not found or expected. It is
not known whether the pottery from the Upper Salt and that from the
Upper Gila is similar, for our museums have no extensive collections
from the latter region from which to make comparisons and draw
conclusions. We know practically nothing of the prehistoric culture of
the Upper Gila.
The aborigines of the Mimbres, like those of some of the former
dwellers in Pajarito Park in New Mexico, practised a modified form of
urn burial, but the latter rarely decorated their pottery with figures
of animals. As compared with known Pueblo ceramics, the Mimbres pottery
appears to be more closely allied to ancient Keresan than to old Tewan.
Judging from what remains, the houses architecturally had little in
common with true pueblos.[63] There are no evidences of circular
subterranean kivas with pilasters, ventilators, deflectors, and niches,
as in northern New Mexico, although there is a fairly large proportion
of subterranean rooms or pit dwellings which may have been their
prototypes. Architecturally the prehistoric habitations of the Mimbres
Valley represent an old house form widely distributed in the Pueblo
region or that antedating the pueblo or terraced-house type before the
kiva had developed.
There are not sufficient data at hand to determine satisfactorily the
kinship of the prehistoric inhabitants of Mimbres Valley, but as far as
may be judged by pottery symbols it may be supposed that their culture
resembled that of other sedentary people of New Mexico and Arizona in
early times, as well as that of peoples of Chihuahua. It appears to the
author that there are so many cultural similarities among the sedentary
people which inhabited the Sierra Madre plateau, of which the Antelope
Plain of Mimbres Valley is only a northern extension, that we may
regard their culture as closely related. A specialized high development
of this inland culture took place along the Casas Grandes River,
culminating in Chihuahua. The Mimbres Valley was inhabited by people
somewhat less developed in culture.
Although the ancients of the Mimbres were related on the one side to
the Pueblos of New Mexico and on the other to more southern people,
that relationship existed between the ancestors of the same rather than
with modern Pueblos, and reached back to a time before the terraced
communal house type originated. This type of house arose in northern
New Mexico and spreading from this center extended down the San Juan
as far as the Hopi, while modifications are also found in certain
ruins on the Gila and Little Colorado, which, like Zuñi, it profoundly
influenced, but its influence never reached as far as the Lower Mimbres.
A comparison of the limited archeological material from the Mimbres
with that from other localities in the Southwest suggests a provisional
hypothesis that the prehistoric culture of this valley was not modified
by terraced architecture nor greatly affected by that of the Lower Gila
type, both of which evolved independently and locally, but belonged to
an older type with which it had much in common.
[Illustration: PL. 1
FIG. 1.—WOMAN DANCER. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. 12 BY 6 INCHES. OSBORN
RUIN.
FIG. 2.—DANCING FIGURE. RED DECORATION. DIAMETER 5 INCHES. OSBORN
RUIN.]
[Illustration: PL. 2
FIG. 1. TWO WOLVES. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. 11 BY 5½ INCHES. OSBORN
RUIN.
FIG. 2. MOUNTAIN SHEEP. BLACK AND WHITE WARE. 11 BY 5½ INCHES.
OSBORN RUIN.]
[Illustration: PL. 3