le peoples.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCII

ENTRANCES TO CAVATE RUINS]

Whether the rock had recesses in it before the caves were enlarged
would seem to be answered in the affirmative, for similar caves
without evidences of habitations were observed. These, however, are as
a rule small, and wherever available the larger caverns have been
appropriated and enlarged by stone implements, as shown by the pecking
on the walls. The enlargement of these caverns, however, would not be
a difficult task, for the rock is very soft and easily worked.

Entering one of these cavate rooms the visitor finds himself in a dark
chamber, as a rule with side openings or passageways into adjoining
rooms. Broad lateral banquettes are prominent features in the most
complicated caves, and there are many recesses and small closets or
cists.

The ramifications formed by lateral rooms are often extensive, and the
chambers communicate with others so dark that we can hardly regard
them as once inhabited. In these dimly lighted rooms the walls were
blackened with smoke, as if from former fires, and in many of the
largest the position of fireplaces could plainly be discovered. As a
type of one of the more complicated I have chosen that figured to
illustrate the arrangement of these cavate dwellings (figure 245).
Many are smaller, others have more lateral chambers, but one type is
characteristic of all.

A main room (_A_, figure 245), or that first entered from outside, is
roughly rectangular in shape, 12 feet long by 6 feet wide, and about 6
feet high. The floor, however, was covered with very dry debris which
had blown in from the exterior or, in some instances, fallen from the
roof. That part of the floor which was exposed shows that it was
roughly plastered, sometimes paved or formed of solid rock.

On three sides of this room there is a step 2 feet high, to platforms,
three in number, one in the rear and one on each side. These platforms
are 5, 6, and 6 feet 6 inches wide, respectively, and of the same
length as the corresponding sides of the central room. It would appear
that these platforms are characteristic architectural features of
these habitations, and we find them reproduced in some of the rooms of
the cliff houses of the Red-rocks, while Nordenskioeld has described a
kindred feature in the kivas of the Mesa Verde ruins. A somewhat
similar elevation of the floor in modern Tusayan k