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SMITHSONIAN MISCliLLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



also inquired into the probable geophysical changes brought about in 

 Chaco Canyon since Pueblo Bonito was inhabited. It is now known, 

 for example, that Pueblo Bonito was occupied by two distinct groups 

 of Indians ; that the type of architecture developed by each group was 

 as unlike the other as were the household utensils employed in the 

 corresponding sections of the village. Both peoples were farmers, 

 however, and their fields of corn, beans, and squash may well have 

 lain side by side. Hunting played no essential part in their means of 

 livelihood despite the variety of mammal and bird bones found in 



Fig. 162. — Bonitian cooking pots buried just beneath the floor of Room 350 

 and used for storage purposes. (Photograph l)y Neil i\l. Judd. Courtesy of 

 the National Geographic Society.) 



the rubbish piles. Agriculture was the main dependence of both 

 groups, but there came a time when the harvests were no longer suffi- 

 cient to support a population of from twelve to fifteen hundred. 

 Arroyos formed, rain waters drained off quickly, helpful chemicals 

 were leached out of the soil, the latter became impervious to water, 

 crops failed to mature. This condition, it appears from the data at 

 hand, was the indirect result of the prodigal manner in which the 

 Bonitians utilized their available timber supply. Altered agricultural 

 conditions, then, in addition to the harassment of nomadic, enemy 

 tribes, unquestionably contributed to the disintegration and ultimate 

 abandonment of both Pueblo Bonito and Pueblo del Arroyo. 



