A Home for Ten Thousand Years

A HOME FOR TEN THOUSAND THE OLDEST CONTINUOUSLY OCCUPIED PLACE KNOWN IN

Many voices in the Southwest beckon. Among them, in Arizona, exploration has beckoned loudly; and so scientific investigation of early Man in the New World has become a vogue. It is true, when discoveries of antiquity in our Great American Desert occur, general interest is aroused. When, however, a find reveals proof of continuous primitive habitation of a single dwelling place for 10,000 years, the event makes special newsin fact, it makes history.

This strange tale begins back in 1941 with the discovery of the site located 110 miles westward from Tucson, Arizona, a place now known as Ventana Cave. The original news interest concerning it might be said to continue to command public attention today at the Arizona State Museum through vivid displays and a tenfoot diorama which cost $6,000, all designed to perpetuate the extraordinary story.

To be accurate, the saga begins some 25,000 years ago in answer to the question, "Where had they come from, the primitives who arrived here to begin their long sojourn at Ventana Cave?"

Well, as to that, scientists are pretty well agreed that way back in the Ice Age these aboriginal immigrants came to the far northwest regions of America from Asia. They threaded their way across a land-bridge where Bering Strait now is. Probably they were seeking new hunting grounds, for they had developed the stone spearhead. In that Late Glacial or Pleistocene Age (the last of the ages before our own), when the glaciers over North America were receding, there were at times icefree areas which were habitable. Such hunters having only pelts for warmth, being without beasts of burden, without the wheel for transportation, lacking metal, pottery, fibres for weaving, proved they were indeed a hardy race to have maintained survival, just as our Indians in historic times have also withstood Nature's great hardships.

BY BEULA M. WADSWORTH PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF ARIZONA STATE MUSEUM Interestingly enough, those primitives of antiquity had the same physical characteristics possessed by our American Indians today, that is, straight hair, broad, brown face, and prominent cheekbones. Moreover, the resemblance goes back to the Asiatic type-all this being evidence of ancestral connection in Asia. The fact that certain northern tribal groups expanded southward and spread into territory that is now Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico and split into different groups indicates that they became the various Indian tribes of our Southwest today.

Upon the arrival of the ancients here 10,000 years ago after less good times in the icy regions, they must have made the most of this opulent land, for the American Southwest had not yet become a hot, dry desert country which we now know. It is surprising to learn that the newcomers experienced up to 40 inches of

YEARS AMERICA Entrance to Ventana Cave

annual rainfall as compared with 10 to 20 inches today. Here the people discovered a variety of animals deep in grass-the mammoth, bison, llama-like camels, meat-eating ground sloth (a great lumbering, stupid brute), fourprong-horn antelope, and many wild horses. These new inhabitants of the south discovered not only game but eventually native plant foods such as corn, nuts, roots, and probably fruits. As proof of their use of cereals, many grinding stones called metates have been found in excavations-a step of progress in that undeveloped race.

It seems the culture of the Indians of that day had not sufficiently progressed toward home-building of even a primitive sort. However, the people were resourceful enough to make use of caves along the cliff faces, for here were ready-made shelters that had been gouged out by wind and water and left conveniently high and dry -roof, walls, floor, a big front door usually open to the sun what more could be desired? One favorite of these was Ventana Cave.

Fortunately for history, these usually dry caves have proven to have magic keys which opened up to archaeologists treasures buried for many millenniumssecrets of age, customs, arts, and the general development of the ancient Indians to add to the world's knowledge. The discoveries at Ventana Cave, however, transcend in importance all others in this field. For instance, whereas excavated sites in the American Southwest, such as as the ones at Sandia, New Mexico, and at Gypsum Cave near Las Vegas, Nevada, have proved of extraordinary value in having established one date, that of 10,000 years ago, as the era producing the first evidence of Man's existence in America, Ventana Cave deposits established continuous dating from the Late Ice Age to near our present time. In fact, no other known place in North America had had such a long period of occupancy.

The question arises, “How did this Ventana Cave discovery come about?” Already the University of Arizona at Tucson had become known as a center of Southwest exploratory activities in the field of prehistoric cultures. Dr. Emil Haury, head of the Department of Anthropology and director of the Arizona State Museum, a tall, stalwart scholar under middle age, had done notable work in Arizona as well as in Colombia, South America. Around 1941, providentially, it seemed, while Dr. Haury was motoring out from Tucson in the area of Castle Mountains, his attention was called to a series of jagged cave-like hollows in cliffs a mile away toward the west. The largest hollow on the southeast face of a long spur or butt seemed suddenly to call for early investigation, especially since the members of his department and of the State Museum had at that very time been jointly looking for a location for archaeological studies.

A visit to the cave soon thereafter showed the floor

to be littered with plant remains, animal and human bones, and general occupation material-all practically undisturbed. Dr. Haury soon rounded up his professional staff, his field students, and Indian workmen, with Mr. Julian Hayden chosen to be supervisor of the project.

At destination, upon leaving the car, the way leads up a slope toward a large entrance; in fact, it is as wide as the cliff. The butt containing the cave is formed of lava blocks which came from a volcano ages ago. Some of the lava over a long time had weathered away due to seepage of water coming from rain, and thus the cave had been hollowed out of the base of the cliff. A boulderstrewn slope near the entrance, called a talus cone, had been scoured down by weather from the cliff above.

The cave itself in its habitable part is practically 180 feet in width and is parallel to the entrance. Ventana is not a deep cave, no extensive chambers or tunnels; moreover, it offers more light and ventilation than many other caves, and much more room in which to work.

Entering the cave, sunlit if the time is morning, two chambers are noticed divided by a rock partition which projects outward from the rear wall. The left-hand deeper and upper chamber contains a permanent spring of water at the floor level. This spring was doubtless a prime asset to the people who utilized the shelter; and so it is no wonder this cave home attracted successive generations of primitive tenants over the long centuries.

Importantly, Ventana Cave had within its upper chamber a phenomenal mound which, perhaps, could appropriately be called a great "book of knowledge," its "earthen" leaves being strata constituted of a mixture of both geological and man-made leavings-the mound 15 feet in total thickness. The content of the layers then is seen to serve as a language which challenged interpreta-tion in terms of facts by trained personnel. These experts, archaeologists, anthropologists, and paleontologists, backed by extensive field observations, necessarily cooperated in order to elucidate the evidence of cultures of occupants who successively left behind in their debris priceless artifacts that tell their story. It should be added that apparently a rocky obstacle had, by good fortune, helped to amass and build up layer on layer of material by preventing any escape of it through erosion by water. Excavation methods are quite exact.

To begin with, in both chambers before excavating was begun, a grid of lines was laid out to form test blocks, the lines about six and one-half feet apart. These lines in one direction were numbered, while the intersecting lines were lettered as is often done on city maps. The vertical breaks in the levels were about 20 inches in depth. Trenching followed these lines. Specimens coming from any one block were labeled accordingly. In the deeper layers the natural stratification was followed for identification. The diggings were carried all the way down to bedrock. Inch by inch the patient Indian workmen dug with greatest care lest a pick or shovel should damage bones, pottery, or other fragile items. The deeper and more solid strata required arduous digging.

As the material was dug, it was removed by wheelbarrow to a cradle screen where two men did the work of shaking the screen and sorting out the cultural remains. In general, all items of the enormous amount found were placed in labeled sacks. Larger artifacts, on the other hand, such as grinding stones which were found in considerable quantity, were stacked in piles for later analysis.

Of course, excitement and wonderment grew with revelations from the strata of the great mound. To describe the several strata with necessary brevity: the top layer called the Midden was, naturally, laid down last. It showed intense occupation extending uninterrupted from about 3000 B.C. to near recent times. There was an immense assortment of items found: 39 burials, stone implements, pottery which came in at about the time of Christ, ornaments, cordage, textiles, basketry, artifacts from wood, plants, fur, leather, feathers.

The second layer down, Talus, was a tongue which reached in from the talus cone outside. It indicated traffic but no actual living on it, the date about 7000 B.C., and evidence of prehistoric animal extinction.

The third layer, Red Sand, contained abundant bones of modern animals, stone implements, and hearths possibly dating back to 8000 B.C.

Under the Red Sand was the so-called Volcanic Debris which was carried in by water and cemented by lime and silica which made difficult the extrication of scattered fossil bones and teeth of extinct animals, also ancient Man's hunting implements, these representing the oldest occupation of the cave. This stratum together with the Conglomerate layer below it, the last and fifth stratum which contained only charcoal and two implements, date, as we have said, to approximately 10,000 years B.C.

All the accumulated data acquired in connection with this project made possible the authenticity of detail and the realism in the production of the large, costly diorama illustrating this site, to be seen at the Arizona State Museum. The diorama represents the ancient landscape with tree-covered mountains in the background, the entrance to Ventana Cave up the slope plainly visible. The prehistoric animals (listed earlier), mostly now extinct, as they roamed the valley 10,000 years ago, look very real indeed, and ancient man at the extreme right is represented as busy over a weapon, for these animals furnished him food, skins for clothing, and bone material for tools.

The contemplation of the antiquity of Ventana Cave is staggering when it is realized that in only 5000 B.C. the first Pharaohs began reigning in Egypt, and that 4000 B.C. is the earliest date in Biblical history.