FLAT AND TERRACED ROOFS DEVELOPED FROM SLOPING MESA-SITES.
We cannot fail to take notice of the indications which this brings before us.
(1) It is quite probable that the overlapping resulted from an increase in the numbers of the ancient builders relative to available area, this, as in the first instance, leading to a further massing together of the houses. (2) It suggested the employment of rafters and the formation of the _flat_ roof, as a means of supplying a level entrance way and floor to rooms which, built above and to the rear of a first line of houses, yet extended partially over the latter. (3) This is I think the earliest form of the terrace.
[Illustration: FIG. 495.--Section illustrating evolution of flat roof and terrace]
It is therefore not surprising that the flat roof of to-day is named _té k‘os kwïn ne_, from _te_, space, region, extension, _k‘os kwi e_, to cut off in the sense of closing or shutting in from one side, and _kwïn ne_, place of. Nor is it remarkable that no type of ruin in the Southwest _seems_ to connect these first terraced towns with the later not only terraced but also literally cellular buildings, which must be regarded nevertheless as developed from them. The reason for this will become evident on further examination.
[Illustration: FIG. 496.--Perspective view of a typical solitary house.]
[Illustration: FIG. 497.--Plan of a typical solitary house.]
The modern name for house is _k‘iá kwïn ne_, from _k‘iá we_, water, and _kwin ne_, place of, literally "watering place;" which is evidence that the first properly so called houses known to the Pueblos were solitary and built near springs, pools, streams, or well-places. The universal occurrence of the vestiges of single houses throughout the less forbidding tracts of the Pueblo country (see Figs. 496 and 497) leads to this inference and to the supposition that the necessity for protection being at last overcome, the denizens of the lava-fields, where planting was well-nigh impossible, descended, building wherever conditions favored the horticulture which gradually came to be their chief means of support. As irrigation was not known until long afterwards, arable areas were limited, hence they were compelled to divide into families or small clans, each occupying a single house. The traces of these solitary farm-houses show that they were at first single-storied. The name of an upper room indicates how the idea of the second or third story was developed, as it is _ósh ten u thlan_, from _ósh ten_, a shallow cave, or rock-shelter, and _ú thla nai e_, placed around, embracing, inclusive of. This goes to show that it was not until after the building of the first small farm-houses (which gave the name to houses) that the caves or rock-shelters of the cliffs were occupied. If predatory border-tribes, tempted by the food-stores of the horticultural farm-house builders, made incursions on the latter, they would find them, scattered as they were, an easy prey.