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
216 feet; its width at the widest part 89 feet. There were counted in
the Spruce-tree House 114 rooms, the majority of which were secular, and
8 ceremonial chambers or kivas. Nordenskiöld numbered 80 of the former
and 7 of the latter, but in this count he apparently did not
differentiate in the former those of the first, second and third
stories. Spruce-tree House was in places 3 stories high; the third-story
rooms had no artificial roof, but the wall of the cave served that
purpose. Several rooms, the walls of which are now two stories high,
formerly had a third story above the second, but their walls have now
fallen, leaving as the only indication of their former union with the
cave lines destitute of smoke on the top of the cavern. Of the 114
rooms, at least 14 were uninhabited, being used as storage and mortuary
chambers. If we eliminate these from the total number of rooms we have
100 enclosures which might have been dwellings. Allowing 4 inhabitants
for each of these 100 rooms would give about 400 persons as an
aboriginal population of Spruce-tree House. But it is probable that this
estimate should be reduced, as not all the 100 rooms were inhabited at
the same time, there being evidence that several of them had occupants
long after others were deserted. Approximately, Spruce-tree House had a
population not far from 350 people, or about 100 more than that of
Walpi, one of the best-known Hopi pueblos.a
In the rear of the houses are two large recesses used
for refuse-heaps or for burial of the dead. From the abundance of guano
and turkey bones it is supposed that turkeys were kept in these places
for ceremonial or other purposes. Here have been found several
desiccated human bodies commonly called mummies.
The ruin is divided by a street into two sections,
the northern and the southern, the former being the more extensive.
Light is prevented from entering the larger of these recesses by rooms
which reach the roof of the cave. In front of these rooms are circular
subterranean rooms called kivas, which are
sunken below the surrounding level places, or plazas, the roofs of
these kivas having been formerly level with the plazas.
aOn the author's plan of Spruce-tree House from a
survey by Mr. S. G. Morley, the third story is indicated by
crosshatching, the second by parallel lines, while the first has no
markings. (Pl. 1.)
The front boundary of these plazas is a walla which
when the excavations were begun was buried under debris of fallen
walls, but which formerly stood several feet above the level of the
plazas.
aSee American Anthropologist, n. s., v. no.
2, 224-288, 1903.
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