There are numerous cliff-houses in this district, but while, as a rule, they are much smaller than the magnificent examples in the Mesa Verde, they are built on the same architectural lines as their more pretentious relatives. Both large and small have circular subterranean kivas, similarly constructed to those of Spruce-tree House, and have mural pilasters (to support a vaulted roof, now destroyed), ventilators, and deflectors.

There are also many rooms in cliffs, possibly used for storage or for some other unknown purposes, but too small for habitations. It is significant that these are identical so far as their size is concerned with the "ledge houses," near Spruce-tree House, indicating similar or identical uses.

The kivas of cliff-dwellings of size in the region considered have the same structural features as those of adjacent ruins, but very little resemblance, save in site, to those of cliff-dwellings in southern Arizona, as in the Sierra Ancha or Verde Valley, the structure of which resembles adjacent pueblos.

The absence in the McElmo region of very large cliff-houses is due partly but not wholly to geological conditions, the immense caves of the Mesa Verde not being duplicated in the tributaries of the McElmo but wherever caverns do occur, as in Sand Canyon, we commonly find diminutive representatives. While differences in geological features may account for the size of these prehistoric buildings, the nature of the site or its size is not all important. [1]

---

¹Attention may be called to the fact that often we find very commodious caves without correspondingly large cliff-houses, even in the Mesa Verde.

---

Here and there one sees from the road through the McElmo Canyon a few small cliff-houses, and if he penetrates some of the tributaries, he finds many others. The canyon is dominated by the Ute Mountain on the south, but on the north are numerous eroded cliffs in which are many caves affording good opportunities for the construction of cliff-houses.

These buildings do not differ save in size from the cliff-houses of the Mesa Verde. Their kivas resemble the vaulted variety and the masonry is identical.

Although the existence of cliff-dwellings in the tributaries of the McElmo has long been known, the characteristic circular kivas which occur in the Mesa Verde had not been recognized previous to the present report.

The relative age of the pueblos and great towers and the same structures in caves can not be decided by the data at hand, but the indications are that they were contemporary.

On account of the similarity in structure of the McElmo cliff-dwellings to those on Mesa Verde, only a few examples from the former region are here considered. It may be worthy of note that while McElmo cliff-dwellings are generally accompanied by large open-air pueblos and towers or great houses on the cliffs above, in the Mesa Verde open-air buildings [1] are generally situated some distance from the cliff-dwellings.

---

¹Sun Temple, however, is a seeming exception and follows the McElmo rule of proximity; several large cliff-dwellings occur under the cliff on which this mysterious building stands.

---

Several small cliff-houses occur in Sand Canyon, one of the northern tributaries of the McElmo. Stone Arch House, here figured (pl. 6, a), so called from the eroded cliff (pl. 4, b) near by. It is situated in the cliff, about a mile from where the canyon enters the McElmo Canyon near Battle Rock. Abundant pinon trees and a few scrubby cedars grow in the low mounds of the talus below the ruin, near which, on top of a neighboring rock pinnacle, still stand the well-constructed walls of a small house (pl. 4, a).

The formerly unnamed cliff-house shown in plate 8 [2] is one of the best preserved in Sand Canyon. It consists of an upper and a lower house, the former situated far back in the cave, the latter on a projecting terrace below. Unfortunately it is impossible to introduce an extended description of this building as it was not entered by the author's party, but from a distance the walls exhibit fine masonry. It is unique in having double buildings on different levels, an arrangement not rare in a few examples of cliff-dwellings on the Mesa Verde. As shown in plate 8, the character of the rock on which the lower house stands is harder than that above in which the cave has been eroded. The upper house is wholly protected by the roof [3] of the cave and occupies its entire floor. The lower house shows from a distance at least two rooms, the front wall of one having fallen.

---

²Taken from a point across the canyon, the only one from which both houses can be included in the same photograph.

³For a good example of cliff-houses at different levels, see Cliff-Dwellings in Fewkes Canyon, Mesa Verde National Park, Holmes Anniversary Volume.

---

From a distance the walls of both the lower and the upper house seem to be well preserved, although many of the component stones have fallen to the base of the cliff.

One of the cliffs bordering Sand Canyon has an inaccessible cave in which is an artificial platform or lookout shown in plate 7, a. Although this structure is not as well preserved as the scaffold in the neighborhood of Scaffold House in Laguna (Sosi) Canyon, on the Navaho National Monument, it seems to have had a similar purpose. It is constructed of logs reaching from one side of the cave to the other supporting a floor of flat stones and adobe. Its elevated situation would necessitate for entrance either holes cut in the cliffs or ladders.

In subsequent pages the author will describe a ruin called the Unit-type House, situated in the open on the north rim of Square Tower Canyon. A similar type of unit-type house is found in a cave in Sand Canyon. The reader's attention may first be called to the definition of a unit type, which is a building composed of a circular kiva, with mural banquettes and pedestals supporting a vaulted roof, with ventilator, reflector, and generally a ceremonial opening near a central fire hole in the floor. This kiva (fig. 5) is generally embedded in or surrounded by rectangular rooms. The single-unit type has one kiva with several surrounding rooms; the so-called pure type is composed of these units united.

In an almost inaccessible cave (pl. 5, b) in Sand Canyon a few miles from the McElmo road near the scaffold already mentioned there is a cliff ruin, so far as known the first described single-unit house in a cave. It covers the whole floor of the cave (fig. 5) and its walls are considerably dilapidated, but the kiva shows this instructive condition: The walls are double, one inside the other, with two sets of pedestals, the outer of which are very much blackened with smoke of constant fires; the inner fresh and untarnished, evidently of late construction. A similar double-walled kiva known as "Kiva A" exists in Spruce-tree House, as described in the author's account of that ruin. [1] On the perpendicular wall of the precipice at the right hand of the ruin in the cave above mentioned are several pictographs shown in plate 7, c.

---

¹Antiquities of the Mesa Verde National Park: Spruce-tree House. Bull. 41, Bur. Amer. Ethn., 1909.

---

The rectangular rooms about the kiva are in places excavated out of the cliffs, but show standing walls on the front. These were not, however, constructed with the same care as those of the kiva.

The cliff-house in Hackberry Canyon (pl. 9, a) is one of the most instructive. It lies below Horseshoe House and appears to be a second example of a unit-type kiva and surrounding rooms.

The cliff-dwelling in Ruin Canyon [1] visible across the canyon from the Old Bluff City Road is well preserved. On the rim of the canyon are piles of stone indicating a very large pueblo, with surface circular depressions indicating unit-type houses.

---

¹The name Ruin Canyon, often applied also to Square Tower Canyon, is retained for this canyon.

---

Lost Canyon, a southern tributary of the Dolores River, contains instructive cliff-houses to which my attention was called by Mr. Gordon Parker, superintendent of the Montezuma Forest Reserve, who has kindly allowed me to use the accompanying photographs. This cliff-house (pl. 10, a, b) belongs to the true Mesa Verde type and shows comparatively good preservation of its walls, some of the beams being in place. It is most easily approached from Mancos.

There are small cliff-houses in the same canyon not far from Dolores, but these are smaller and their walls very poorly preserved.

An interesting feature of these cliff-houses in Lost Canyon is that they mark the northern horizon of cliff-dwellings of the Mesa Verde type, having kivas similarly constructed.