Jan. 1935 Annual Report of the Director 171 



The Fourth Field Museum Archaeological Expedition to the 

 Southwest, under the leadership of Assistant Curator Paul S. Martin 

 (who has since become Acting Curator of the Department) con- 

 tinued for fourteen weeks its archaeological investigations on the 

 Lowry ruin in southwestern Colorado, about thirty-two miles north- 

 west of Cortez, Montezuma County. As in the previous three years, 

 the expedition was financed from the income of a fund donated by 

 the late Julius and Augusta N. Rosenwald. The ruin was explored 

 under a permit granted by the United States Department of the 

 Interior. 



The excavations were greatly expedited through the aid given 

 by the Montezuma County Emergency Relief Administration, which \ V 



furnished six to ten men for a period of nine weeks. Special thanks ^ AV^ 



are due to Mrs. Alice Van Diest, Director of Colorado State Relief, 

 and to Mr. Harry E. Kauffman, Administrator of the Montezuma 

 County Emergency Relief Administration, and his associates, for 

 their helpful cooperation. 



With the force thus furnished, certain large excavations which 

 had been deferred in previous years, were undertaken. The first 

 digging was at the south end of the pueblo. It soon became apparent 

 that this section was built late, and belongs to the period called 

 "Mesa Verde," designating a culture characterized by a certain kind 

 of masonry, by small, low-ceilinged rooms, and by a polished pottery 

 decorated with vegetable paint in designs typical of the Mesa Verde 

 region. 



In this late addition eleven living rooms and one small kiva 

 were excavated. The latter had been at one time a rectangular 

 living room which later was converted into a crude ceremonial 

 chamber, three sides of which were straight, and the fourth, curved. 

 Then, in order to simulate a subterranean structure, an extra wall 

 had been built about two feet from the south side, and the space 

 thereby created was filled with earth. 



A large refuse heap underlay the floors and the walls of the late 

 rooms and extended beyond the outer walls for some thirty feet. 

 In this were found fourteen burials, four of them under walls. This 

 cemetery is the first and only one positively belonging to Lowry 

 pueblo proper. Burials unearthed by the expedition in other years 

 lay 500 feet or more from the main building and very likely belonged 

 to near-by remains of small, crude, early houses. 



Most of the summer was spent in excavating the Great Kiva, 

 which lies approximately 300 feet east of the pueblo. When the 



