Note 13 — ANTIQUITIES OF THE MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK

Nordenskiöld on the contrary seems to make the terraced rooms one of the points of resemblance between the cliff-dwellings and the great ruins of the Chaco. He writes:

“On comparison of the ruins in Chaco Cañon with the cliff-dwellings of Mancos, we find several points of resemblance. In both localities the villages are fortified against attack, in the tract of Mancos by their site in inaccessible precipices, in Chaco Cañon by a high outer wall in which no doorways were constructed to afford entrance to an enemy. Behind this outer wall the rooms descended in terraces towards the inner court. One side of this court was protected by a lower semicircular wall. In the details of the buildings we can find several features common to both. The roofs between the stories were constructed in the same way. The doorways were built of about the same dimensions. The rafters were often allowed to project beyond the outer wall as a foundation for a sort of balcony (Balcony House, the Pueblo Chettro Kettle). The estufa at Hungo Pavie with its six quadrangular pillars of stone is exactly similar to a Mesa Verde estufa (see p. 16). The pottery strewn in fragments everywhere in Chaco Cañon resembles that found on the Mesa Verde. We are thus not without grounds for assuming that it was the same people, at different stages of its development, that inhabitated these two regions.”—The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, p. 127.