Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/339

 KIDDER] HISTORIC RUINS IN SAN JUAN VALLEY, N. M. 327

color often appears. The upper sides, interior and exterior, bear simple line decorations in red, margined with faint brownish black (fig. 20, a to e) ; a few designs are in black alone (fig. 2oe 2 ). The rim-edge is usually painted red. This ware has not yet been found at Pecos ; I do not know what its affinities are. 1

CONCLUSIONS

Two points are obvious from the foregoing; first that these houses were built during the Historic period ; and second that their builders were probably in contact with the Navajo or some other people who made circular, earth-covered lodges of wood.

The comparatively advanced decay of the ruins, and the fact that stone implements were still in use, 2 argues a considerable age.

Two explanations of their origin present themselves: first, that their inhabitants were, so to speak, indigenous, and that iron tools, livestock, etc., were transmitted to them by tribes farther south who were in actual contact with the Spaniards; second, that their builders were members of one of the Pueblo tribes, who for some reason came north, lived in the Gobernador region for a time, and then either returned to their former houses, or were destroyed.

I think that the first theory: namely that the builders of these ruins were indigenous, is extremely improbable from the fact that in the exhaustive lists of towns given by the early Spanish chroniclers, there is no mention of any such northern settlement. A trade sufficiently brisk to have carried cattle nearly to the Colorado border could scarcely have passed unnoticed. All the evidence seems to point to a temporary occupation by some of the known Pueblos.

The date of this occupation and its cause are perhaps to be found in the following historical information summarized from Bandelier's Final Report (part n, pp. 215-216):

The Spanish, having been expelled from New Mexico in 1680 by a general uprising of the Pueblos; returned in force ten years later, and reconquered the

1 As it is quite impossible to give a really understandable verbal description of pottery types, the author will be glad to send a selection of sherds to anyone who wishes to make comparative studies.

2 A num ber of arrow-points, scrapers, and drills were found in the debris. 22

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