EXPLORATIONS IN NEW MEXICO 



467 



excellent, but notwithstanding their 

 smoothness, most of the walls of the liv- 

 ing rooms were finished with adobe 

 plaster. One of the kivas is as fine an 

 example of Pueblo architecture as has 

 ever been unearthed. After the curving 

 walls were constructed, they were rubbed 

 and polished with sandstones till the 

 surfaces were smooth as a planed 

 board. A room near the eastern end of 

 the building has a small portion of its 

 walls ornamented with incised geo- 

 metric patterns. This beginning of 

 mural decoration marks the highest 

 stage to which Pueblo architecture at- 

 tained, and without corroboration would 

 have shown the structure in which it 

 occurred to have been of relatively late 

 construction. 



The only entrance to the building- 

 was through a narrow doorway in the 

 center of the south wall. This opened 

 into a small hall from which ladders 

 reached to the roof of the first story. 

 To gain entrance to the lower rooms it 

 would have been necessary to go down 

 through hatchways by means of other 

 ladders, but between the rooms on each 

 floor there were diminutive openings 

 through which one might pass on hands 

 and knees. With sheer outer walls and 

 but one door, the building constituted a 

 fort as well as a dwelling. 



Like the one beneath, this edifice had 

 been stripped of everything of value, so 

 that the only specimens recovered were 

 about a bushel of pottery fragments 

 and two small pots which had been 

 buried under a floor with the bodies of 

 children. The fragments were enough 

 to establish the type of ware and style 

 of ornamentation characteristic of the 

 pottery correlated with the sandstone 

 structure, but as it was desirable to 

 supplement the fragmentary material 

 with whole or restorable vessels, the 

 burial mounds north and south of the 



village were opened. They yielded one 

 hundred skeletons, and as many beau- 

 tiful pottery vessels. 



There is something indescribably fas- 

 cinating about the excavation of a 

 burial mound, and the intentness with 

 which all of one's faculties are centered 

 upon the work develops a surprising 

 keenness of perception and discrimina- 

 tion. In a short time it is possible to 

 tell a fragment of decayed human bone 

 from that of another kind of animal 

 merely by crushing it between the fin- 

 gers, because a human bone reduces to 

 a flour-like powder, while that of a wild 

 animal breaks up into a granular, sandy 

 substance. Some slight difference in 

 the quality of the vibrations which 

 travel up a shovel handle when the 

 blade strikes a hard object, informs one 

 whether the obstruction is a stone or a 

 pot. Many features of the work (con- 

 spire to place upon one the spell which 

 binds the prospector and the gambler. 



For weeks Bill Eoss, the writer's 

 most trusted workman, had been eager 

 to open one refuse mound which an in- 

 tuition born of thirty years' experience 

 among the ruins caused him to suspect 

 of containing many graves. At length 

 he was given the opportunity, and 

 toward noon of the first day he beat a 

 tattoo on a shovel-blade from the pit in 

 which he was at work. It was a signal 

 for all hands to gather, for no one can 

 be expected to labor when a "find" is 

 being made. There in the side of the 

 excavation he had uncovered a thigh 

 bone, brilliantly yellow as fossil ivory. 

 In a few minutes the position of the 

 skeleton was determined. The body 

 was that of an adult buried upon its 

 back, with arms at the sides, and knees 

 elevated. Resting upon the abdomen 

 there was a l)eautiful bowl, within the 

 bowl a long and graceful ladle, and 

 beside it a little cooking pot. 



