A CACHE OF BASKET MAKER BASKETS FROM NEW 



MEXICO 



By Walter Hough 



Head Curator, Departm<'nt of Anthropoloyy, United States National Museum 



The joint expedition of the Smithsonian Institution and the Pea- 

 body Museum of Yale University worked during 1929 in a cave in 

 Dona Ana County, N. Mex., which was thought to contain the re- 

 mains of a sloth. A specimen of this animal was taken from an 

 adjoining cave by a previous expedition of the Peabody Museum in 

 1928, and this has been described by Dr. R. S. LuU.^ In neither of 

 these caves were observed artifacts or other remains of man, but in 

 a crevice adjoining, though not connecting with, the second cave, 

 Norman Boss, of the United States National Museum, discovered a 

 cache of baskets of particular interest. These are described below. 



With the baskets were found a slender rod of dressed wood trun- 

 cated at the ends, a fragment of gourd, and a lenticular mass of 

 whitish clay with numerous finger impressions. Evidently the soft 

 clay had been pressed into a vessel with concave surface, probably to 

 stop a crack (pi. 1, fig. 1) . With the baskets was a very little debris, 

 consisting of dust containing skulls of mice and fruits and thorns of 

 desert plants. 



OVAL BOWL 



The sides of this specimen have been eroded away, and at present 

 the basket is an oval tray with upcurved ends. The construction of 

 a basket of this shape undoubtedly presented unusual difficulties to 

 the weaver. The oval section of 14 coils proceeded regularly, com- 

 prising the bottom field of the basket. The formation of the sides 

 of an oval basket necessitated the insertion of numerous rods. These 

 splicings or injunctions appear on the inner axis of the oval. The 

 fifteenth coil is inserted about an inch to the right of the minor axis ; 

 the sixteenth an inch to the right ; the seventeenth the same distance 

 to the right ; and the eighteenth the same distance to the right of the 

 last. These four coils run around to the left and terminate in a 

 similar way oppositely at the foot of the basket wall on the margin 



1 Lull, Richard Swann, A renrarkable ground sloth. Mem. Peabody Mus., Yale Univ., 

 Tol. 3, pt. 2, 1929. 



No. 2933.— Proceedings U. S. National Museum. Vol. 81. Art. 10 



111315 — 32 1 



