Smithsonian Institution , Bureau of American Ethnology , Washington, D. C., January 4, 1909 . Sir : I have the honor to submit herewith for publication, with your approval, as Bulletin 41 of this Bureau, the report of Dr. Jesse Walter Fewkes on the work of excavation and repair of Spruce-tree cliff-ruin in the Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. This was undertaken, pursuant to your instructions, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, and a résumé of the general results accomplish

Spruce-tree House (pls. 1, 2) [1] is situated in the eastern side of Spruce-tree canyon, a spur of Navaho canyon, which at the site of the ruin is about 150 feet deep, with precipitous walls. The canyon ends blindly at the northern extremity, where there is a spring of good water; it is wooded with tall piñons, cedars, and stately spruces, the tops of which in some cases reach from its bed to its rim. The trees predominating on the rim of the canyon are cedars and pines. The rock out of which th

Although there was once an old Spanish trail winding over the mountains by way of Mancos and Dolores from what is now New Mexico to Utah, the early visitors to this part of Colorado seem not to have been impressed with the prehistoric cliff-houses in the Montezuma valley and on the Mesa Verde; at least they left no accounts of them in their writings. It appears that these early Spanish travelers encountered the Ute, possibly the Navaho Indians, along this trail, but the more peaceable people who

Like the majority of cliff-dwellings in the Mesa Verde National Park, Spruce-tree House stands in a recess protected above by an overhanging cliff. Its form is crescentic, following that of the cave and extending approximately north and south. The author has given the number of rooms and their dimensions in his report to the Secretary of the Interior (published in the latter’s report for 1907-8) from which he makes the following quotation: The total length of Spruce-tree House was found to be 21

From the preceding facts it is evident that the people who once inhabited Spruce-tree House were not highly developed in culture, although the buildings show an advanced order of architecture for aborigines of North America. Architecturally the cliff-dwellings excel pueblos of more recent construction. The pottery is not inferior to that of other parts of the Southwest, but has fewer symbols and is not as fine or varied in colors as that from Sikyatki or from Casas Grandes in Sonora. It is bette