The ruined walls on the bluff situated at the junction of the McElmo
and Yellow Jacket Canyons are archeologically instructive. As the mesa
between the two canyons narrows in a promontory, about 100 feet in
altitude, its configuration reminds one of the East Mesa of the Hopi.
It is inaccessible on three sides, but on the fourth, where the width
of the mesa is contracted, there are remains of a low zigzag wall,
extending from one side to the other. At the western base of this
promontory, on the ledge higher than the river, there are artificial
walls built on bowlders in the sides of which shallow caves are eroded
and near by them circular depressions. There are likewise remains of
a small pueblo with walls much broken down and across the river the
ruins of a community house, one of the largest in the district. The
exceptional character of the ruins on top of this promontory has been
mentioned or described by several visitors, as Holmes, Jackson, and
Morley and Kidder, and various conjectures have been made as to their
character and relation to the other ruins in this neighborhood.
The ruins on this mesa are of two kinds: small inclosures made of
slabs of stone set on edge and semicircular structures (fig. 18), also
constructed of upright stone slabs or megaliths. Three of the latter
have concentric surrounding walls with a “vestibule” entrance (?) at
the south somewhat like rooms at the bases of towers. One of these is
said by Morley and Kidder to have three concentric walls. The small
box-like structures are numerous, and are rudely constructed, united in
an imperfect ring about the circular rooms.
In verification of the various theories that have been suggested to
account for these rectangular structures—their interpretation as
storage bins, burial places, and cremation rooms—we have no proof.
Similar rooms of megaliths exist on Sandstone Canyon and at other
places to the north and in Montezuma Canyon to the west. The rude,
massive character of the masonry leads me to refer them to the slab
house culture of Kidder and the imperfect masonry suggests they were
habitations in a period antedating that of the pure pueblo culture.
Such fragments of pottery as were found were, like the architecture,
rude and archaic, adding weight to the interpretation that they
belonged to a very old epoch.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.—Megalithic stone inclosure, McElmo Bluff.]
The author regards the structures made of stones set on edge as very
old, possibly examples of the most primitive buildings in the McElmo
region, antedating the pueblos with horizontal masonry farther east.
West of the mouth of the Yellow Jacket, especially on the Montezuma
Mesa, these megalithic walls are more pretentious, as if this was the
center of the earlier phase of house buildings. In the eastern ruins
these slabs of stone set on edge sometimes appear as at Far View House
with horizontal masonry, but more as a survival.
Since their discovery and description by Jackson and Holmes 40 years
ago, little has been added to our knowledge of these inclosures,
although similar remains have been reported at various points from
Dolores far into Utah. They are called cemeteries and crematories
by the farmers and stockmen, but skeletons or burnt bones do not
occur in them; the charcoal shows wood fiber, and is not bone ash.
More knowledge must be obtained through excavations before their
significance can be determined. Their association with circular rooms
appears in Jackson’s account[53] of the stone structures on the
promontory at the mouth of the Yellow Jacket. He says:
[53] Tenth Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Surv. (Hayden Survey) for 1876, p.
414, 1879.
“The perpendicular scarp of the mesa ran round very regularly, 50
to 100 feet in height, the talus sloping down at a steep angle. On
cave-like benches at the foot of the scarp is a row of rock shelters,
much ruined, in one of which was found a very perfect polished-stone
implement. Gaining the top of the mesa with some difficulty, we found
a perfectly flat surface, 100 yards in width by about 200 in length,
separated from the main plateau by a narrow neck, across which a wall
had been thrown, but which is now nearly leveled. Almost the entire
space fenced in by this wall was covered by an extended series of
small squares, formed by thin slabs of sand-rock set on end. All were
uniform in size, measuring about 3 by 5 feet, and arranged in rows, two
and three deep, adjusted to various points of the compass. There were
also a few circles disposed irregularly about the inclosed area, each
about 20 feet in diameter, their circumferences being formed of similar
rectangular spaces, leaving a circular space of 10 feet diameter in
the center. These rectangles occur mainly in groups, and are found
indiscriminately scattered through the whole region that has come under
our observation upon the mesa tops and in the valleys. They all have
the same general shape and size, and are seldom accompanied by even the
faintest indication of a mound-like character. We have always supposed
them to be graves, but have not as yet found any evidence that would
prove them such. Some that we excavated to the depth of 5 and 6 feet in
a solid earth that had never been disturbed did not reward our search
with the faintest vestige of human remains. In nearly every case,
however, a thin scattered layer of bits of charcoal was found from 6 to
18 inches beneath the surface. In one instance, near the Mesa Verde,
the upright slabs of rock which inclosed one of these rectangles were
sunk 2 feet into the earth and projected 6 inches above it.”
Holmes (op. cit., pp. 385-386) describes similar structures:
“The greater portion of what are supposed to be burial places occur
on the summits of hills or on high, barren promontories that overlook
the valleys and cañons. In these places considerable areas, amounting
in some cases to half an acre or more, are thickly set with rows of
stone slabs, which are set in the ground and arranged in circles or
parallelograms of greatly varying dimensions. At first sight the idea
of a cemetery is suggested, although on examination it is found that
the soil upon the solid rock surfaces is but a few inches deep, or if
deeper, so compact that with the best implements it is very difficult
to penetrate it.
“On the west bank of the Dolores, near the second bend, I came upon a
cluster of these standing stones on the summit of a low, rounded hill,
and in the midst of a dense growth of full-grown piñon pines.”
The rows of stones at this place, according to the same author,
were composed of undressed slabs, many of which had fallen, the
parallelograms averaging 3 by 8 feet in dimensions. Thin layers of bits
of charcoal and pottery occur in the neighborhood. The date these slabs
were placed upright was very early, for trees growing in the inclosures
were estimated to be three or four hundred years old. These stones were
sometimes “embedded in the sides and roots of the trees.” Holmes had
the “impression that these places, if not actually burying grounds,
were at least places used for the performance of funeral rites ... the
remains of the dead being burned or left to decay in the open air.”
The interiors of the inclosures were found on excavation to be filled
to a depth of about a foot with soil mixed with ashes. There were many
fragments of pottery, and some other objects near them, but nothing
to indicate, as suggested by previous observations, that they were
burial cists or even crematories for burying the dead. No charred
human remains occur, but charcoal is abundant. It may have been that
these places were used as ovens for roasting corn or for some culinary
purposes, the neighboring circular rooms being possibly used for the
same purposes as towers by the people who formerly inhabited this
region. They are not large enough for dwellings and the soil in them is
too shallow for burial purposes. They belong to a type which is widely
distributed over the district visited by the author. Especially fine
examples occur north of Sandstone Canyon district.
At the base of the great cliff, on the top of which the remains in
question are found, under the shelter of an overhanging bowlder, may be
seen one of the finest collections of pictographs of animals and human
beings. Not far from the last-mentioned bowlder the walls of a large
pueblo can readily be traced along the banks of the McElmo Canyon.
In his studies of the antiquities of this region the author did not
penetrate west of the mouth of Yellow Jacket Canyon, but he was told
by stockmen and sheep herders of the existence of many other ruins
contiguous to the road all the way from this point to Bluff City. The
most important of these have already been described in a general way.