Pygmy Race Discovered in Arizona
"No Larger Than Bones of Child Yet Has Perfectly Developed Teeth."
The Border Cities Star, March 20, 1923
Cliff Dweller Skeleton Declared That of Pygmy
Appears No Larger Than Bones of Child, Yet Has Perfectly Developed Teeth; Skull Shows No Evidence of Immaturity
Prescott, Arizona, March 20 - Scientist who will visit Prescott next summer to attempt to fathom the mystery of the ancient cliff dwellings on the Verde River will be asked to give their attention to a skeleton found recently by Morris and Howell Payne, ranchers living a few miles north of this city.
Although the skeleton is apparently no larger than that of a child of four or five years, the skull contains a fully developed set of mature teeth. The Payne brothers unearthed the skeletons while excavating.
The tiny doorways and low ceilings seem to bear out the theory that the people living there were of small stature, but the dwarf-like skeleton is so much smaller than that of the man of today that it has created another of those archaeological problems which it is the purpose of the national geographic society to solve. It is possible, in a series of expeditions next summer for a road in granite dells, a vast granite formation near Prescott. Digging carefully, they were able to extricate practically all of the bones without breaking them.
The skeleton has excited a lively interest on account of the size and the maturity of the teeth and the skull bones, which one physician said showed none of the pieces of evidence of immaturity of an infant's cranium.
Prints of the hands of the builders of the well-preserved prehistoric dwelling known as Montezuma's castle are still seen in the mud-like mortar holding the stones together and these prints indicate that the dwellers were persons with very small hands.
