Annual report of the Bureau of ethnology to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution .. . atthe foot of the hill, on the flat bottom land, but the slopes of the hillare covered with bowlders and show no well-defined lines. Scatteredabout on the surface of the ground are some fragments of metates ofcoarse black basalt and some potsherds, but the latter are not abun-dant. The bowlders which now mark these sites were probably obtained inthe immediate vicinity of the points where they were used. The mesaon which the ruin occurs is a river terrace, constructed partly of thesebowlders; they outc
Annual report of the Bureau of ethnology to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution .. . atthe foot of the hill, on the flat bottom land, but the slopes of the hillare covered with bowlders and show no well-defined lines. Scatteredabout on the surface of the ground are some fragments of metates ofcoarse black basalt and some potsherds, but the latter are not abun-dant. The bowlders which now mark these sites were probably obtained inthe immediate vicinity of the points where they were used. The mesaon which the ruin occurs is a river terrace, constructed partly of thesebowlders; they outcrop occasionally on its surface and show clearlyin its sloping sides, and the washes that carry off the water falling onits surface are full of them. In the northern end of the settlement there are faint traces of whatmay have beeu an irrigating ditch, but the topography is such thatwater could not be brought on top of the mesa from the river itself. Atthe southern end of the settlement, northeast of the point shown inthe illustration, there are traces of a structure that may have been a. mindeleff] BOWLDER-MARKED SITES. 237 storage reservoir. The surface of the mesa dips slightly southward,and the reservoir-like structure is placed at a point just above the headof a large wash, where a considerable part of the water that falls uponthe surface of the mesa could be caught. It is possible that, commenc-ing at the northern end of the settlement, a ditch extended completelythrough it, terminating in the storage reservoir at the southern end,and that this ditch was used to collect the surface water and was notconnected with the river. A method of irrigation similar to this ispracticed today by some of the Pueblo Indians, notably by the Ilopi orTusayan and by the Zufii. In the bottom land immediately south of themesa, now occupied by several American families, there is a fine exampleof an aboriginal ditch, described later. In the vicinity of the large ruin just above Limestone creek,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublisherwashi, bookyear1896
