The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-05-08
4 PREHISTORIC RACE.
Interesting Ruins That 5Iay BE Seen in the
Valleys of New Mexico.
albuquerque y. NJ letter.


Valleys of New Mexico.
Albuquerque y. NJ letter.
Forty miles from Sabinal on the east
ern side Of the Rio Grande, lie the ruins
of a large town now called Gran Guerrero.
The foundations made Of stone, are all
that remain of the houses. The rooms
were generally small, about 10x14 feet,
although a few were much larger, and
were evidently used for religious purposes
The stones are not hewn, but are laid up
in good shape. The land in the vicinity
shows evidence of cultivation At many
places along tic Rio Grande the ruins of
these stone houses can be seen, often &C
companied by evidences Of cultivation of
the so ].
The houses were always built on a knoll
or point commanding q view of the sur
rounding country, and where there were
many of them they joined one another so
that the whole would form a fort afford
ing protection against neighboring
hundreds of gulches and valleys where
there is no water contain the ruins of
these houses and villages. The rock used
is always malperis, or a kind of hard
sandstone. a large hole was dug in the
center of every village, perhaps to hold
water, but there is no cement in it, and it
is more likely that they were used in re
igious rites Large quantities of broken
pottery are found about these villages,
and in the few places where excavations
have been made many curious articles
have been found, and entire skeletons
with protuberances two inches in diane
ter at the base of the skull. The Nava-
jOes now, and generally all the Indians Of
this section, when dispoSing of their dead,
hide the skulls where they are never found
by Americans.
Excavations in the Tulerosa valley have
revealed stone walls to the depth of six
feet The same may be said of the PeCos.
Thirty miles northeast of Fort Wingate
are the ruins of one house built almost
round, of rough sandstone The diam
eter was fifty feet One corner of it is
now standing nearly fifty feet high Logs
of wood are placed at intervals of about
seven feet showing that there were seven
stories. The building was five miles
from a mountain where there is a spring
of water. Quite large valley runs north
from the mountain, but there is no water
in it. A great deal of broken pottery is
scattered over the hills near this building,
which appears to have been the only one
in that section. Ten miles south, on the
divide, a wagOn-load of petrified oyster
shells could be picked up. That part of
New Mexico abounds in petrifactions of
various kinds. 1t is no uncommon sight
to see trees three feet in diameter and
fifty feet long petrifed and often crystal
lized. The crystals-red, yellow, black
or white-are often very beautiful and
would make handsome ornaments for
eastern parlors. The petrifed forest on
Rhododendron creek, in Arizona, has
been written about so much that many
have the mistaken idea that all the petri-
factions are contained in this forest.
Petrifed trees are found for 800 miles east
of Sunset, Arizona
Mai. Stevenson, of the United States
geological survey, has done good work
here for the past two years in developing
the history of the Pueblo Indians. He
has just shipped five carloads of pottery,
blankets, weapons, agricultural nipple
ments, ETC., etc, illustrative of the man
ners, customs, and general civilization of
these people, but this work does not tell
US of the people who swarmed over this
country before the time of the Pueblos,
who do not number over II, 900, while
the former people must have numbered
hundreds of thousands, and were proba-
bly, identical with the mound builders of
the western prairies and the cave jewellers
of Arizona