NO. 2280. A PIT HOUSE VILLAGE IN NEW MEXICO-HOUGH. 431 



Were these communal houses of the ancestors of the Yumas? 



The curious relationship in a number of respects between the 

 culture of the zone of great pueblos in the north and that of the 

 southern side of the great escarpment (rim) which runs from the 

 Grand Canyon to the Continental Divide is interesting. In pottery 

 we have the incised decoration in coil (fig. 32) ; partial decorative 

 use of coil on necks and rims of vessels; the serpent figure; long- 

 necked handled vases, and, in wood, the throwing stick, roundel 

 pahos, etc. It is possible that the greatest development of pit struc- 

 tures will be found in the north. There have been discovered the 

 circular "slab houses" of Monument Valley, northeastern Arizona; 

 the circular houses of the " Basket Makers " of Grand Gulch, Utah; ^ 

 and other ruins of northern New Mexico which suggest that this 

 type of habitation is more than sporadic. It is expected also that 

 the artifacts will show characteristics which can be used to demark 

 this culture. In the Little Colorado Valley two ruins have been de- 

 scribed as enigmatic at the time of their discovery, but may now be 

 affiliated with the pit-house culture. These ruins are in the neigh- 

 borhood of the Petrified Forest of Arizona.^ One of these, on the 

 slopes of the Mesa Prieta at Woodruff, consists of a large number of 

 shallow basins, and the other on Canyon Butte wash shows circles 

 of slabs and metates set up on the slopes of a small hill. From 

 records in the field notes the pottery and other artifacts conform to 

 those of the pit-house culture. A more detailed examination of 

 these ruins is implied. 



1 Kidder. Prehistoric Cultures of the San Juan Drainage, Proc. 19th Intern. Cong 

 Americanist, Washington, 1917, p. 108-109. 

 » Hough. An. Rep. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1901, p. 818. 



