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Show Uinfeoh Basin clif? dwellers May 19, 1932 By Albert B. Reagan Ph.D Ouray Utah This paper is the result of two ar-cheological ar-cheological trips to the Hill (Creek) Canyon region, about forty miles south of Ouray, Utah, the first being made in the early summer of 1930 and the second in 1931. It should be added that the work was carried on with the cooperation of the laboratory of anthropology an-thropology at Santa Fe. It should also be added that Mr. Clifford Broom of Ouray, aided the writer in the work. Hill Creek is a branch of Willow Creek, which, in turn is a confluent of Green River, joining the stream nearly opposite the mouth of Nine Mile (Minnie Maud Creek) Canyon. Most of the ruins; examined were about six miles below to six miles above what is known as Taylor's lower ranch and will here by be just designated as "Taylor ranch." A party under Dr. Donald Scott visited the region in 1931, and Dr. J.W. Feekes visited it in about 1916. A description of the ruins and rock writings seen here follow: The Ruins Eight Mile or Rock House ruins, the major ruin consists of a cluster of circular towers and a rectangular building laying in a north-south axis on a cliff overlooking the right side of the canyon, about five miles below Taylor's ranch. The whole cluster is about seventy feet in length, while the circular cir-cular rooms vary from twenty feet to a circular room that is partly inside of another, and is so small, that a man could scarcely stand in it with comfort. One room is D-shaped and several seem to have inside elevated banquets (benches) surrounding them. A conspicuous con-spicuous feature of this ruin, as with several others of the region, is that the basal courses of the masonry are constructed of massive, almost megalithic rocks, with a gradual decrease in the size of the rocks upward. up-ward. A milling stone was just east of it. Including the D-structure five circular cir-cular buildings can be made out one of which is only round in its outer (west part) it having the west walls of the two middle towers for its east wall. It is therefore, almost shaped like a wedge, with a roundish tip. This village was placed on the very edge of the mesa platform which here is capped with a very hard sand rock of five feet or so in thickness. This formation for-mation is very " peculiar in that it weathers into great flat pieces of from five to ten feet in length, and it is off these that the village was erected. The formation, too, is very resistant and from under it the shaley clay rock is gradually weathered out, leaving a wide hollow space beneath. In the old times, no doubt, there were many dug-out habitations beneath this capping rock, both here and on the adjacent spurs of the same mean, one of which can still be made out. Not only that but this undermining of the mesa front here, due to weathering, has caused the clayey-shale to be removed beneath the. harder sandstone till quite a part of the village is now sitting out over the hollowed out space and unless man comes to its aid and puts in support sup-port sills beneath it, this most conspicuous con-spicuous of the Hill Canyon's remains will soon be precipitated down the mesa side. At the foot of the mesa, about a hundred yards north of this mesa topped ruin there is a foundation of a circular house of five paces in diameter. Three hundred yards farther to the northwestward, there are also two circular edifices, in foundation, twelve feet from each other in a north-south north-south line. Each of which is about eight feet in diameter. On a knoll about one eighth of a mile farther- to the northwestward nor-thwestward there is also an ancient alter, built of rock that has been carried from the. adjacent mesa ; while across the (Hill) creek about two hundred feet about east of this altar, there is an ancient village, three rooms of which still show in foundation, the rock of which it was constructed having been carried from the top of the mesa. On the inner mesa top, east of the creek about two miles south of Ruin No. 1 above there are remains of two rock houses which are so disturbed that their exact status cannot now be determined. No artifacts were found about them. Ruin A and Neighboring Caches and Habitations l Near Taylor's Ranch House The major ruin which caps the point of a high cliff which is inaccessible except on its west side, is a circular enclosure of twenty-five feet in diameter, its walls height about thirteen thir-teen feet high in the highest part, on the inside. Remains of a banquet or bench, show within the room, which seems to show that it was a religious edifice. This room is separated from the plateau by a deep fissure worn in the rock outside the wall on the west side, the height of the wall which varies from one to three feet in thickness being twenty feet on the inside at this point, the wall being composed of larger rock at the base than at the top. This ruin is situated on a hard capping rock as is No. 1 and under this cap is a'offne example of the dugout type, of habitation several of which occur in the sides of this canyon, some of them having lateral and front walls but none i possessing more than one room. They I were probably the rooms where the people lived who had the fort-i fort-i ceremonial room capping the cliff front above them. On the south side of the canyon about a mile below Ruin A. there are several caches high up along the mesa wall. Three of these are on a point that projects northeastward between the main valley and a south extending side canyon. From the east one of these Mrs. Veone (Jack) Taylor found a basket which was made of pealed willow limbs, woven in with willow bark so that it was practically water tight. When found it contained the bones of a child. In the fall of 1930 Mr. Clifford Broom also found a sealed up place in this cache in- which he found several corn-cobs, a chunk of resin, and cloud blowers, exactly like a cloud blower figured by Roberts (Roberts Frank H.H. Jr., Shabik's Escliee Village, a Late Basket Maker Site in the Chaco Canyon, New Mexico Bull. 93 Bur Amer. Ethn fig "d", pi. 18 1929). All of which were kindly furnished the writer for the laboratory of anthropology an-thropology by Mr. Broom. It has also been reported that a cedar bark sack of corn, a piece of rawhide, and a little piece of skin of some animals were found in the next cache westward. The cist's here are of interest, as each one originally had mudded-up "cistern-aprons "cistern-aprons on its outer margin. One of these has a rim seven inches high and another is roundish in height and a foot and a half in width. The east cache is ten feet high eight feet wide and six feet deep. The others are much smaller. About 40 feet above the level of the south-leading side canyon mentioned above there is another cache, here built under a projecting ledge, about 500 yards west of . the caches previously described. It is in box-form and had a thin flat rock placed in its bottom. It is four feet long and in east-west line, three feet, wide, and two and one half feet high and is walled in onthe non-ledge non-ledge sides with slab rocks set on end, which were plastered in with mud mortar chinking, the joint cracks being filled with grease wood, brush and mortar plastered over them. It was wholly empty when visited. Ruin B. also near Taylor's ranch house. This ruin is on a .narrow, long projecting "promontory-like" ridge, a few hundred yards south of the Taylor ranch house, It extends across this ridge from the rim of Hill Canyon on one side to the rim of a tributary canyon forming in itself a fort wall, thus blocking the passage-way along the surface of the ledge to its point. The building is thirty-one feet in total length, with a D-shaped tower of ten feet in diameter forming its north room, the average height of the wall now being about four feet. A raised bench shown on the south side of the structure. The only entranceway into the building and on to the point beyond it was through a circular doorway, which still shows on the east side. Like Ruin A. of No. 2 the structure suggests a fort as well as having some features common to religious edifices. Twin Towers and the Ruins About Them About a mile and a half up the canyon from the Taylor ranch house a ridge projects northward into a side canyon on the west side of Hill Canyon proper. On top of this promontory-like ridge there are twin pinnacles in mushroom shape, each of considerable height, and each now inaccessible except by ladders. lad-ders. Fragments of hose walls rim the tops of these pinnacles. Each of which commands a magnificent view of the canyon and the surrounding area. The south pinnacle also seems to have been much larger when it was inhabited as a room then extended southeastward on the ledge three feet below the summit, a part of the wall of which still remains on the now broken-down ledge. A cedar pole of about six inches in diameter also projects from a ledge on the northwest side of the same pinnacle, three feet below the top of this rock, and is probably all that is left of another set of rooms. A part of the house walls of the north pinnacle has fallen eastward recently and now lies in a heap about ten feet from the base of the pinnacle. An ancient stone altar is just south of the south pinnacle and another, about twenty feet to the northeastward of it. While on about a five foot high raised bench just to the south of the north pinnacle there was an approximately circular room of about eight feet in diameter. It was built of flat rocks, and if chinked, the chinking has all blown away. Most of the walls of this building have fallen over the cliff. The feet northeast of the same pinnacle is the foundation of a probable sunken building of about eight steps in diameter. It was probably a kiva. Under an over-projecting hoodlike top on the east side of the bench on which the Twin Pinnacles are located there is a pictograph of a spiral, a crude drawing of a woman, and a drawing of a dog, which is represented as being on his back with feet extended. Ruin on a Leaning Pinnacle. The ruin here is on an inaccessible pinnacle of forty feet in height from its base and it itself tops a narrow ridge " that rises 200 feet above the valley. The 1 pinnacle so leans that the ruin barely ; falls within the line of stable equilibrium. Its construction seems to be very similar to that of the towers on the twin pinnacles just described under No. 4. A High Perched Ruin. This ruin, which is on a high rock "promontory-like" projection of the mesa facing Hill Creek from the east, seems to be constructed very much like the tower in the leaning pinnacle above. One mile northeast of the ruins on Long Mesa, next to be described, and about two miles up the canyon from the Twin Towers of No. 4, there is a low ridge that extends from the west wall of the canyon two-thirds of the way across the canyon floor in an east direction being here probably fifty feet in height at its crest. On this ridge, 200 feet east of the west wall of the canyon there is a roundish building foundation, of about eighteen feet in diameter now all down. While abutting it on the west there is a sunken "plaza" with a line of north-south north-south straight wall on its east margin still showing. The plaza extending in a westward direction for about sixteen feet. It was probably a summer edifice which was likely closed in and roofed with brush. Sixty-feet to the eastward of the circular room there is the foundation foun-dation of part of another building while on the east point of the ridge, still farther to the eastward there is also either the remains of an altar or a small circular building. No artifacts were found about this site. Continued next week. |