76 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 28 



was roughly rectangular in shape. At an average distance of 10 

 inches from each corner a large post had been set in the floor. These 

 four posts appear to have carried at their tops a rectangular frame- 

 work, which formed the support for the roof and walls. Both the 

 roof and walls had had a framcAvork of small poles, which was 

 covered with adobe plaster averaging 6 inches in thickness. The roof 

 proper seems to have been flat, while the walls had a slight slope due 

 to the fact that the poles which formed them had had their lower 

 ends embedded in the earth around the edges of the shallow pit, while 

 their upper ends leaned against the framework at the tops of the 

 large support posts. In most cases the rooms were entered by means 

 of a small doorway in the center of one of the side walls. One or 

 two of the structures gave the suggestion of a roof entrance. In all 

 cases the doorway seems to have had a large stone slab for a cover. 



There seems to have been a definite method of grouping the houses, 

 from four to eight or more of them being grouped in a semicircle, 

 around a circular depression. Two of these depressions were exca- 

 vated and two more were trenched in the hope that they might be 

 found to contain kivas or ceremonial rooms, but in all four cases 

 they were found to be nothing more than pits. It is quite possible 

 that the earth used in making the plaster to cover the wooden frame- 

 work of the structures was taken out of these pits; possibly the 

 plaster itself was mixed there, while the hole remained to serve as a 

 reservoir for the storing of water, ^n each case the lower portions 

 of the pits gave distinct evidence of having been filled with water. 



Refuse mounds containing burials were found in most cases to lie 

 some distance south or southeast of the house clusters. The burials 

 were of the contracted form, the body being placed in the shallow 

 grave with the knees drawn up to the breast and the lower limbs 

 tightly flexed to the upper. Accompanying each burial were two 

 or three pottery vessels as mortuary offerings. 



A good collection of pottery and other specimens was secured 

 from the houses and graves. 



An interesting sidelight on the village is that it was destroyed by 

 fire, presumably in tlie fall or early winter, as practically every 

 vessel found in the structures contained corn, beans, wild cherries, 

 or some other form of vegetal food. It appears that very little of 

 the harvest had been used when through some mischance or other the 

 village was devastated by flames. Two of the inhabitants were 

 trapped in the houses, as the findings of the skeletons on the floor 

 w^ould indicate. In both instances the remaining fragments of bone 

 showed clearly the marks of fire, and there was every evidence to 

 show that the bodies had been consumed in the flames. 



