﻿1 68 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



whose floor level lay 13 feet 6 inches (4.1 m.) below the present 

 valley surface. No one may say what chapters of human history still 

 lie buried beneath the alluvial flioor of Chaco Canyon. 



Mr. Roberts also superintended stratigraphic studies, authorized 

 by special permit from the Department of the Interior, in the rubbish 

 piles at the two major ruins known as Pueblo Alto and Penasco 

 Blanco. These enormous heaps consist principally of floor sweepings 

 containing ashes and fragments of pottery broken upon the hearth, 

 intermixed with blown sand and debris of reconstruction. Potsherds 

 are to the archeologist what fossils are to the geologist ! The oldest 

 fragments lie at the bottom of the pile ; the latest, on top. The evolution 

 or decadence of pottery technique at any one site is thus represented 

 by a cross-section of its ash heap. In consequence of its studies at 

 Pefiasco Blanco and Pueblo Alto, the recent Pueblo Bonito Expedi- 

 tion has obtained data which illustrate not only the development of the 

 art of pottery manufacture in both villages but which also indicate 

 their probable positions in the chronology of Chaco Canyon. Mr. 

 Judd finds no reason to alter his original impression that Puel^lo 

 Bonito was the earliest of the major Chaco Canyon villages and that 

 it was inhal:)ited for a longer period than any of the others. 



The method by which it is hoped to ascertain the absolute age 

 of Pueblo Bonito and Pueblo del Arroyo, namely, through study of 

 annual growth rings in their ancient roof timbers, is already familiar 

 to readers of the Smithsonian Explorations volume. These studies 

 have gone forward during the past field season under the direct super- 

 vision of Dr. A. E. Douglass, of the University of Arizona. The data 

 assembled by Dr. Douglass hold much of interest ; although his conclu- 

 sions may not yet be published, it is permissible to say that this phase 

 of the National Geographic Society's ex]:)lorations in Pueblo Bonito 

 is also certain of contributing to the prehistory of the southwestern 

 United States results not previously recorded. 



INVESTIGATING EVIDENCE OF EARLY .MAN IN FLORIDA 



All research for the accumulation of knowledge pertaining to the 

 early history of man is of human interest, and especially so in that 

 ])art of it which reaches back into primitive time. 



It has long been known that in Europe primitive trilies of the human 

 race for long centuries lived contemporaneously and were well ac- 

 quainted with many kinds of wild animals which are now extinct. 

 Among these animals were the hairy mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, 

 the great cave bears, cave hyenas, wild horses, great oxen, etc. In 



