Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-07

Moapa Valley will be submerged, and it will be
possible for tourists to visit the city by water.
The ruins left by the early tribes Of Indians,
who were scattered widely over the Southwest,
are not nearly so pretentious as the spectacular
cliff dwellings and the large stone and adobe
buildings left by the Pueblo peoples, who came
later in the prehistoric period. They appear
humble and Insignificant by comparison with
the Pueblo dwellings but the adobe pit -dwellings
furnish the only record of the existence Of
those people who were the first Americans.
Pueblo Grande seems to have been the largest
Pueblo settlement In the State of Nevada, &C
cording to M. r. Harrington, who was in charge
of the exploration and the restoration work
done in that area for the Museum of the
American Indian. Similar settlements, how
ever have been found throughout the South
west in Arizona, New Mexico and California.
Pueblo Grande lies along the river front for a
distance Of or miles, huddled closely in
some places and thinly scattered in others, but
at no point is 1t more than mile in width.
The rancherS and the farmers have leveled
part of 1t long ago while cultivating their lands.
Forty-six houses were thoroughly excavated in
1926 and number of others were partially I'M
earthed, but these represent mere handful Of
the houses that evidently stood on the site and
a small proportion of those whose ruins are
still in existence beneath the desert land.
Writing in the American Anthropologist Mr..
Harrington says:
1T was soon found that there had been sew
eral types of houses occupied by the same
people, the most primitive of which was the pitt
dwelling proper. This Is a circular or oval pit,
or 10 feet across and or feet deep, with
a floor Of hard-beaten earth or of adobe, with
the sides Of the hole plastered with the same
material and usually with a circular bowl-shape
fireplace a little to one side of the center In
80 has be Ill fIna lie
above the ground level and the roof must have
been made Of poles covered with mats or some
other perishable stuff, for these pits contained
nothing In the way Of adobe, stone or other
fallen-wall material
"Of more advanced type and more common
here is the pit-dwelling with an encircling wall
of adobe, or adobe and stone; the pit, in this
case yielding the remains of the fallen wall.
I'm some places there are isolated pit-dwell-
ings, others whole groups placed in a more
or less haphazard way; in still others the pits
were arranged In q row, side by side, with q
little space between.
"And it was from rows Of pit-dwellings like
this that true houses seem to have developed.
when some enterprising pit-dweller conceived
the brilliant idea that he might make a single
party wall answer for two adjoining pit-dwel-
ings simply by digging them close together and
making the intervening wall straight instead
of curved; but the true rectangular room seems
to have come later. In most of the houses the
rooms are more like ovals cut straight across
at the ends than like rectangles. That is, the
end walls only are straight, while the side walls
remain curved to a greater extent and the
floors are still more or less sunken below the
surface of the ground.
In such manner seems to have been derived
the idea Of a many-roomed house; from this 1t
was but a step to the building Of houses with
truly rectangular rooms in rows with floors on
the level Of the outside ground-and such
houses were already being built before Pueblo
Grande was abandoned. Thus true Pueblo
architecture was born, for the great three or
four stored houses which characterize the
climax of culture represent merely further
development of the same idea"
When the early pit-dweller came home from
his hunting excursions on the Nevada plateau
or from his fishing trips on the river, he en-
tered his house through a hatchway in the
roof and probably pulled the lid shut on his
private family affairs. few Of his more in