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Show ANTIQUITY OP MAN 85 outline and about five hundred and thirty feet in length by three hundred and eight in width. The rooms are arranged around a central court, being five or six deep in the curved portion and doubtless several stories high next the outer wall. The whole arrangement was evidently for protection from enemies, as in the case of some of the modern pueblos. - v In the Gila Valley are numerous adobe ruins, Casa Grande being the best known. 1 In this region are also found large ditches and remains of a former system of irrigation, by which it is estimated that at least two hundred and fifty thousand acres could be supplied. 1 In northern Mexico, in the western part of the state of Chihuahua, are several ruins similar to those of the Gila valley, known as Casas Grandes, or " Great Houses." The culture of their inhabitants seems to have been somewhat higher than that of the more northern pueblos, as indicated by certain household utensils, the possible existence of stairways in the interior of the houses, and by the method of constructing irrigation ditches.* v Who were the builders of these old ruins? \ With regard to the cliff dwellings in particular many ' Mindeleff, " Casa Grande Ruin" ( Bureau of Ethnology, Thirteenth Annual Report, 289- 319). ' Hodge, " Prehistoric Irrigation in Arizona " ( American Anthropologist, VI., 323- 330). 1 Bandelier, Final Report of Investigations Among the Indians of the Southwestern U. 5.; Archaeological Institute of America, Papers American Series, IV., 569. |