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Show ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF FIRST INHABITANTS — 35 rooms have been used as domiciles independently of any construction upon the talus against the cliff, but through the entire Pajarito region, where this type of cliff-dwelling culture reaches its culmination, the excavated rooms were not generally used as independent domiciles.1® Thirteen talus villages have been identified in the Rito de los Frijoles, and sufficient excavation has been done to lay bare foundation walls establishing the existence of houses of from two to four terraces built against the cliff. Nowhere else are the evidences of the existence of the talus pueblos so well preserved as in the Rito. Here we see not only the rows of holes in which rested the floor and ceiling timbers of the building, but in many cases the plaster is still upon the rock which formed the back wall of the house in front. Of the thirteen talus pueblos which have been found in the Rito some contained, perhaps, not to exceed twenty to twenty-five rooms. The principal focus of population in the Rito was the great com19 Hewett, Dr. Edgar L., Excavations at Tywonyi, New Mexico, in 1908. Bandelier, Adolph F., Papers of the Archeological Institute of America, American Series, iv, Final Report, part ii, p. 139, 1892. In his description of the archeological treasures of the Rito, Bandelier, who has been termed the ‘<Pausanias of the Rio Grande Valley’’ in archeological research, says: ‘‘Seen from the brink of the southern mesa, the view of the Rito is surprisingly pictur- esque. The effect is heightened by the appearance of a great number of little door-ways along the foot of the cliffs, irregularly alternating with larger cavities, indicating caves, the fronts of which have partially or completely crumbled away. The base of the cliff rises and falls, so that the line of caves appears to be at different elevations and not continuous. There are spaces where the rock has not been burrowed into; in some places two, in others three tiers of caves are visible. The whole length of this village of troglodytes is about two miles, rather more than less. The cave dwellings of the Rito are so much like those of the Pu-yé and Shu-fin-né that they scarcely need description ; the differences are As in the Te-wa country, they have artificial floors accidental. purely local and There are the same types and are whitewashed or daubed over with yellow clay. of door-ways, air-holes and possibly loop-holes; the same kind of niches and recesses, but the cave-dwellings at the Rito are the most perfect seen by me anyI measured nearly every cave through the whole length of the canyon as where. far as traces of former habitations extended. . . Against such of the cliffs as rise vertically and the surface of which is almost smooth, terraced houses were built, using the rock for a rear wall. Not only are the holes visible in which the ends of the beams rested that supported roofs and ceilings, but in one or two They were round and of the usual places portions of beams still protruded. size. Along the base of these cliffs extends an apron, which was once approximately leveled, and on this apron the foundations of the walls appear in places. It would seem that a row of houses, one, two and even three stories high, leaning against the cliff had been built; sometimes the upper story consisted of a cave, the lower of a building. ‘¢Chambers nearly circular, larger in size than the majority of caves, are also found in the cliffs, some of which have a low projection around the room like a |