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Show for the study of the development of culture through a long period of time. geographical isolation was such as to induce definite, homogeneous The development. That this isolation was well preserved is shown in the homogeneity of both the physical read tions does from type and the cultural remains. several centuries of their history. having never yet yielded a vestige it reflect the civilization in which it this region is as unmistakable to Etruscan, In the art of the Pajaritans we may It is entirely pre-Spanish, the excavaof European influence, and so distinctly was produced that a specimen of pottery the trained eye as is anything Greek, or Egyptian. ‘‘Tt would seem that some ancient culture wave, traversing the Rio Grande valley in very remote times, must have thrown off detachments which lodged upon this plateau. The cause of the unique localization of these bands is not at first thought clear. It is unlikely that motives of defense directed the choice, as would at first seem obvious, for much evidence tends to show that the modern predatory tribes, Navajé, Apache, and Ute, arrived in the Southwest in com- paratively modern times. The construction of the great defensive community houses of the Pajaritans belongs to the latest epoch of their history. For 4 long period they were dispersed over the plateau. This was the epoch of the “small houses’ of which several thousand have been counted in this region.’ 18 Hewett, Dr. Edgar L., Ibid.: ‘‘The reason for selection of this plateau asa place of residence by those early bands that first settled here was simply that in those times this now desiccated table-land afforded more favorable conditions for subsistence than did the adjacent valley of the Rio Grande; a condition now reversed.’’ : 14Hewett, Dr. Edgar L., [bid.: ‘‘There was lacking only the element of dual organization, a social phenomenon that attended the coming together of numerous clans into great communities. This fact of genetic aggregation persists among the Pueblos today. In the ‘small house’ communities the groupal unit was the clan. The basic social fact was the matriarchal system, by virtue of which all domestic authority resided in the mother. The fundamental fact of uvorwaup UL poMmyaipyp ‘ibojomyou Vluvy mae A at sg. es al spa There is both archeological and physiographic evidence that the earliest inhabitants of this region arrived at a time when climatic conditions were radically different from those of the present day. The proof of slow, progressive desiccation of the Southwest is This plateau has not been inhabited for ages on account abundant. The great communities, repreof the almost total lack of water. senting the last stages of habitation, clustered about the gradually failing springs. The earlier ‘‘small house’’ communities were found everywhere, indicating a general climatic condition favorable to agriculture.** This diffusion of population would seem to imply a social organization different from that existing among the people of the great community houses, where the system was the prototype of the modern pueblo. Such, however, is not the case. In the dispersed ‘‘small house’? communities there were fully developed the basic principles of tribal structure that govern in Pueblo organization today.** fo yooyogy ; fo fisazanog HISTORY 24 MEXICAN OF NEW ‘N FACTS ; LEADING 98 |