The total length of Spruce Tree House is 216 feet, and its greatest width
is 89 feet. During the excavation of the ruin in 1907, Dr. Fewkes counted
8 ceremonial rooms, or kivas, and 114 rooms that had been used for
living, storage, and other purposes. At least 14 seemed to have been
storage and burial rooms so that probably not more than 100 were used as
dwellings. If it is considered that a family occupied each room, the
population would have been large, but it is doubtful if all of the rooms
were occupied at one time. An average of 2 or 3 persons to the room,
making a total of not more than 300 for the entire village, would no
doubt be a fair estimate.
Two hundred feet north of Spruce Tree House the canyon comes to an abrupt
box end. A splendid spring flows from the base of the sandstone cliff,
and it was to this spring that the cliff-dweller women went for water
carrying it back to their homes in their big water jars. At the south end
of the cave a trail, consisting of small toeholds cut in the cliff, led
to the mesa top above. This trail was used by the men as they went to
their mesa-top fields, where they raised corn, beans, and squash, and by
the hunters as they went in search of deer and mountain sheep that lived
in the forests above.