﻿NO. 7 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I926 23I 



extensions from the periphery. The circle among the Puel)lo people 

 symbolizes several supernatural conceptions in the Hopi art, among 

 which are sun or sky god and earth, but whether the effigy jar repre- 

 sents either of these or some other conception is not evident. 



The form of this effigy is not unlike an inferior specimen from 

 the cemetery of Pipe Shrine House, Mesa Verde National Park, 

 Colorado.^ 



The mortuary pottery from Elden Pueblo is allied in several fea- 

 tures to that found in the great cliff ruins of the Navajo National 

 Monument and also to that from the Marsh Pass, northern Arizona. 

 It has some points of resemblance to that of an archaic prepueblo of the 

 Mesa Verde culture that antedated the cliff dwellings of the Mesa 

 X^erde, as shown by specimens collected by the Bureau from the ceme- 

 teries at Far Mew Tower and at Pipe Shrine House of the Mummy 

 Lake Group. It likewise crops out elsewhere at most unexpected 

 localities in the Southwest, as in ruins in the Walpi Wash and Jed- 

 ditoh Valley. Dr. Walter Hough has called attention to the similarity 

 of pottery from McDonald Canyon, 22 miles south of Holbrook, to 

 that from Elden Pueblo. It would seem to characterize the oldest 

 culture of the central Little Colorado valley as well as that from the 

 San Juan. 



In conclusion, it should be pointed out that although many important 

 contributions have been made in recent times to our knowledge of 

 pueblo pottery and its distribution in prehistoric times, these conclu- 

 sions are tentative, as there remain many unexplored areas in our 

 Southwest, the pottery of which is unknown. One of these is the region 

 west of the Little Colorado and south of the Grand Canyon, as far 

 west as California and southwest to the Gila Valley. Elden Pueblo 

 lies in the geographical center or heart of this extensive area, of which 

 archeologically and ceramically we knew next to nothing up to the 

 past summer. It is a type ruin strategically placed, adding new facts 

 bearing on several problems of the prehistoric Southwest. 



The likeness of Elden Pueblo architecture and ceramics to the oldest 

 ruins in Arizona is very pronounced. It has many points of resem- 

 blance to the ruins in the Gila basin, apparently connecting them with 

 the pueblos of the San Juan. The relative age of Gila compounds 

 and San Juan pueblos is a problem we are as yet unable to satisfac- 

 torily solve. We now greatly need more information on the region 

 between Elden Pueblo and the mouth of the Gila in order to show 

 intimate connections between compounds and pueblos, but in this re- 



' Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. 74, No. 5, Fig. ro/C. 



