60 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



a calamity, it was strengthened and put in a condition for permanent 

 preservation. 



The roofs of two of the eight kivas in Square Tower House were 

 almost intact and show the best specimens of aboriginal carpentering 

 in the park. Almost all of the original beams are still preserved, 

 and their arrangement shows how the aboriginal builders constructed 

 a vaulted roof. Especial care was exercised in repairing Square 

 Tower House to protect these roofs and preserve the beams in place 

 for examination by archeologists and visitors. 



Small house sites are very numerous on top of Mesa Verde among 

 the dense growth of cedars, and two of these situated above Square 

 Tower House were chosen as types of the remainder for excava- 

 tion. The rooms uncovered on these sites may be called Earth 

 Lodges, and had sunken floors, with roofs now fallen in but origi- 

 nal^ constructed of logs covered with earth. One of these rooms, 

 called Earth Lodge A, was completely excavated, and in order that 

 the style of the most ancient habitation on the park might be seen 

 by visitors it was protected from the elements by a shed. Another 

 form of Earth Lodge, subterranean and probably of later construc- 

 tion, had stone pilasters like a cliff-house kiva for the support of a 

 domed roof, but its walls were made of adobe plastered in the earth. 

 It shows three periods of occupancy: (1) The original excavation, a 

 subterranean room constructed on the lines of the unit type of 

 kiva; (2) its secondary use as a grinding pit, by the introduction 

 of vertical slabs of stone making three grinding mills, the metates 

 of which were in place; and (3) a depression filled in with debris 

 containing human skeletons and other bones. It may thus have 

 served distinct purposes at different times. 



The theoretical importance of Earth Lodge A is that it represents 

 not only the archaic type of building on the mesa but also resembles 

 those widely distributed habitations of nonpueblo tribes. It points 

 to the conclusion that when the ancient colonists came to the Mesa 

 Verde they differed only slightly from nomadic tribes and that their 

 descendants developed the craft of stonemasons long after Earth 

 Lodge A was inhabited. 



Archeological work was renewed on the Mesa Verde in June, 1920, 

 and the work of excavating was begun on a ruin called Painted 

 House and a neighboring cliff dwelling. The result of this work was 

 of great significance, for it brought to light a large cliff building 

 that showed no evidence of having been formerly inhabited. It 

 was not a cliff dwelling, but built for some other purpose. Its char- 

 acter points to the conclusion that this purpose was a temple for the 

 celebration of fire rites, or possibly the conservation of that fire from 



