Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1896-11-06

THE CLIFF JEWELLERS.
How This People of the Stone Age
Used to Live.

at one time, and IN size, shape and
arrangement conform to the ex-
igencies of the s.tty;;:a'io I Jome Of
them are many feet across, soma so
small that one can hardly stand up
right in them and can reach from
side to side. Some communicate
with one another by low openings,
through which one must crawl on
hands and knees; others are entered
only through holes in the ceilings.
Some of the rooms are so small that
they could have been used only for
storage.
The great sloping arches Of the
caverns in which the larger cliff
houses are built shelter most Of them
from above. But when rooms were
exposed or were built one above
another, the roofs or floors are sup
ported by timber girders, whose
rough ends witness to the toilsome
processes involved in their shaping
with such tools alone as men of the
stone age could command. Upon
the heavier timbers they laid smaller
sticks, tied osiers and cedar bark to
these, and plastered the whole over
with thick layers of mud or mortar,
A large part Of the timber is wei
preserved,
= iitiiin, the masonry is usually
coated with thin layer Of plaster,
and the sweep Of the rough palms OF
the old artisans is still plain on
many a chamber wall. They had
tiny tireplaces in the corners of the
little rooms. In others the fire was
in a pit in the floor in the center.
The smoke from the fires found it's
way out as best it could through
holes in the ceilings. So the walls
are often very black, and from some
| of them you can rub off the SCOT
upon your hands to-day. But when
the wall got too sooty thin fresh
| layer of plaster was laid on oveI it.
In some of the larger rooms one can
count 16, and perhaps more, thin
layers of fresh plaster, with the SCOT
in streaks of black between them.
Furniture there is no trace of, I'M
less one reckon as such a low stone
step or bench which runs around
some of the larger rooms.
Many of the ruins contain large
round chambers with the narrow
stone bench along the wall, and a
pit in the center for fire. These
rooms have usually pyramidal or
domelike roof of large timbers,
whose ends rest upon stone piers
which project into the rooms. The
walls of these rooms, which seem to
have been places of assembly, are
usually very sooty In them, too,
one finds such evidence of an intel
ligent provision for ventilation as
shames some of our practices to-day.
Flues, often of considerable size, are
built into the walls, leading from the
open air down into the chambers,
and opening at the floor level. III
front of this opening, and between
it and the fire-pit, was usually a
stone or wooden screen, which ap-
parently kept the draught from di-
rect access to the fire and from the
people sitting around the walls.
Little square cubbies were not in
frequently made by leaving a stone
out of the masonry. These are
especially common in the large round
chambers just mentioned, and small
utensils and ornaments have been
frequently found slowed away in
them. Many Of the rooms have
wooden pegs built into the walls, ap-
parently for hanging things upon.
The stout timbers which form the
floors of the higher rooms were
sometimes left sticking through the
masonry outside the walls, and
small cross-sticks being tied upon
them, they made excellent balconies
"a little dangerous, perhaps, if
some skullSing marauder with bow
and arrows should happen to creep
to the nearest cliff edge above, but
airy and with commanding outlook.
Firesticks have been left, with
round charred ends, such as the
early folks the world over were won't
to twirl upon softer woods, and so
win fire. Little punches of cedar
bark strips closely tied with yucca
threads, and burnt at one end where
they have been used as finder, are
not uncommon finds" in the rooms
and in the rubbish heaps. From
"a Summer Among Cliff Dwell
ings," by T. Mitchell Prudden, in
Harpers Magazine.
e L.