Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1935-09-19
Arizona Ghost Town Seen

Key to Lost Salado Tribe
A prehistoric "ghost town" on the
outskirts Of Phoenix is believed to hold
the key to the mysterious disappear
ance of the Salado people, highly in
telligent, powerful tribe of Indians
who once controlled the rich Salt River
valley, observes a Phoenix, Ariz.,
United Press writer.
The Salados, who dug with stone
tools 125 miles of irrigation canals and
built % villages in the valley, van
ished about 700 years ago. Where they
went; if their descendants are still
living. or lost their identity through
intermarriage with other tribes, are
questions Psychologists seek to an
swer.
Excavations at Pueblo Grande, larg.
est of the "ghost towns" and the only
municipal archaeological park project
in the United States, indicate that the
Salados may have been flooded" out
of the valley by a continually rising
water table which eventually made
their fields worthless.
Odd S. Halseth. archeologist In
charge of the Pueblo Grande work,
said the Salados apparently had been
forced to abandon village after village
and finally the valley itself because
they were unable to lower the water
tables which their irrigation had
raised.
Abandonment Of Pueblo Grande, he
said, apparently was sudden. With
out pack animals, obliged to carry on
their backs everything they took with
them, the Salados were forced TO
abandon their helpless old people and
many Of their helpless infants. leaving
them to die as fool supplies dwindled.
Discovery of skeIetal hurials near
the top of the adobe walls which
formed Pueblo Grande lends credence
to this belief, Halseth said.
Ordinarily, the Salados practiced
cremation, as did most other prehistoric
southwest Indian tribes. Burial pots,
containing charred human bones, have
been found in nearly all villages.
Usually, Halseth explained, the pots
were buried in or near the village
walls. Almost never, he said, did the
Indians inter their dead.
The Pueblo NGrande excavations dis
closed II skeletal burials near the
tops of the walls. Of the skeletal re-.
mains four were those of adults Of
advanced age. while eight were of in
fants three or four years or younger.
OF the infant burials, three were
of skulls only. No other parts of the
| bodies were found, and there was no
evidence that those other parts had
been removed after burial. Each tiny
skull was accompanied by the usual
burial bowls and trinkets.
Were those who remained after the
exodus forced into cannibalism or were
the children sacrificed and decapi-
tated to appease angry gods who sent
the ground waters to food away the
crops?
Those questions, Halseth said, can
not be answered from the evidence
found at the Pueblo Grande excava-
lions. he said, however, that there
is plenty of evidence that other SOUTH
western and Mexican Indians practiced
human sacrifices and. occasionally,
cannibalism.
Presumably, as they weakened, the
abandoned helpless buried their dead
in the walls. instead of resorting to
/ the laborious cremation rites they
usually observed. Possibly, as they
weakened further, they were driven to
cannibalism.
But the greater mystery, the desti-
nation and fate Of the main body Of
the Salados, remains unsolved.