re 252) in which was inserted a fragment of cotton fiber
was unlike anything yet reported from cliff houses, and as the end of
the cotton which projected beyond the cavity of the reed was charred,
it possibly was used as a slow-match or tinder-box.

Several shell and turquois beads were found, but my limited studies of
the cliff-houses revealed only a few other ornaments, among them being
beads of turkey-bone and a single wristlet fashioned from a
_Pectunculus_. One or two fragments of prayer-sticks were discovered
in a rock inclosure in a cleft to the west of the ruin.

CONCLUSIONS REGARDING THE VERDE VALLEY RUINS

The ruins of the Verde region closely resemble those of Tusayan, and
seem to support the claim of the Hopi that some of their ancestors
formerly lived in that region. This is true more especially of the
villages of the plains and mesa tops, for neither cave-houses nor
cavate dwellings are found in the immediate vicinity of the inhabited
Tusayan pueblos. The objects taken from the ruins are similar to those
found universally over the pueblo area, and from them alone we can not
say more than that they probably indicate the same substratum of
culture as that from which modern pueblo life with its many
modifications has sprung.

The symbolism of the decorations on the fragments of pottery found in
the Verde ruins is the same as that of the ancient pueblos of the
Colorado Chiquito, and it remains to be shown whether the ancestors of
these were Hopi or Zuni. I believe it will be found that they were
both, or that when the villages along the Colorado Chiquito[29] were
abandoned part of the inhabitants went to the mesas of Tusayan and
others migrated farther up the river to the Zuni villages.

Two centers of distribution of cliff houses occur in our Southwest:
those of the upper tributaries of the Colorado in the north and the
cliff houses of the affluents of the Salt and the Gila in the south.
The watershed of the Rio Grande is, so far as is known, destitute of
this kind of aboriginal dwellings. Between the two centers of
distribution lie the pueblos of the Little Colorado and its
tributaries, the home of the ancestors of the Hopi and the Zuni. The
many resemblances between the cliff houses of the north and those of
the south indicate that the stage of culture of both was uniform, and
probably the same conditions of environment led both peoples to build
similar dwellings. All those likenesses which can be fo