Department of Anthropology 



Research and Expeditions 



Under the leadership of Dr. Paul S. Martin, Chief Curator of Anthro- 

 pology, the Southwest Archaeological Expedition (see page 40) spent 

 four months digging a large ruin in Arizona. Dr. Martin was assisted 

 by Dr. John B. Rinaldo, Assistant Curator of Archaeology, by 

 Howard Anderson, who had charge of classifying pottery, and by 

 Michael Cornog, Emerson Mulford, Roland Strassburger, and Mark 

 Winter. Purposes of archaeological research in the area are numer- 

 ous, but the major one is an attempt to determine whether the 

 modern Hopi or Zuni Indians are the heirs to the Mogollon culture 

 that has been under study for more than fifteen years. 



The large site that was excavated is located one mile east of 

 St. Johns, Arizona, on a hill overlooking the east bank of the Little 

 Colorado River. The ruin is owned by Mark Davis of St. Johns, 

 who graciously gave the Museum permission to excavate the site and 

 to bring to Chicago for study and exhibition all materials recovered 

 by the expedition. 



Excavation demonstrated that the pueblo was fairly large, con- 

 sisting of fifty rooms, the floors of which rested on bedrock (no earlier 

 structures were found). Most of the rooms were shallow with walls 

 yet standing that varied in height from ten inches to about six 

 feet. Although most of the pueblo had been only one story high 

 (with ceilings perhaps six feet high), some sections of the pueblo 

 had been two stories high. 



There were no outside doorways, but access to each room was by 

 a hatchway in the roof. The hatch, which in some instances con- 

 sisted of a stone jamb (that is, a single large slab of stone pierced by 

 an oval or rectangular hole some 18 inches across and wide enough 

 to permit a person to pass through), was covered by a neatly cut 

 thin stone slab or by planks. Roofs, which were at least eight inches 

 thick, were constructed of several large beams, poles, branches, and 

 clay, and in the center of each roof was the hatch. Smoke from the 

 firepit escaped by this route and fresh-air intake in some rooms was 

 provided by ingenious ventilator shafts. It seems probable that the 

 builders of the pueblo on the Davis ranch had a "blueprint" in mind 

 because the rooms appear to have been built to a pattern. One row 

 of rooms is in line, the rooms are all about the same size, and all the 

 firepits are in line. Two ceremonial rooms (kivas) were found. One 

 had a flagstone floor into which loom holes had been drilled. 



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