SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I929 189 



The archeological remains proved to be of two types representing 

 distinct horizons. The oldest, pit houses, belong to the very begin- 

 nings of the Pueblo cycle, while the more recent represent the fully 

 developed peoples of the Classic Era. The writer had no intention of 

 excavating a ruin of the ])uel)l() type when work was l)cgun on the pit 

 houses, but as investigations ])rogressed he became more and more 

 impressed with the idea that it might be possible io obtain some 

 stratigraphic evidence indicative of the exact relationship between the 

 two groups. With such a possibility in contemplation the debris was 

 removed from a medium sized ruin, the north end of which was found 

 to rest ujMjn and entirely ccjver the remains of a pit house. This defi- 

 nitely estal)lished the priority of the latter form of dwelling. 



Information obtained from the ruins of 17 pit houses makes it pos- 

 sible to briefly summarize the main features of such dwellings. They 

 had consisted of roughl\- circular or oval pits, ranging from 5 to 8 

 feet in depth and 10 to 25 feet in diameter (figs. 170 and 171 ). roofed 

 over with a pole, brush, and i)laster superstructure supported on four 

 upright posts placed in the floor some distance from the walls. This 

 plaster covered roof was probably only sufificiently elevated above the 

 ground level to provide for drainage. A single opening in the center 

 of the roof served as both smoke hole and entrance. The sides and 

 bottom of the pit, the major portion of the dwelling, were covered with 

 a thick coating of carefully smoothed mud plaster. Interior fur- 

 nishings were simple. In the center of each room was a fire pit and 

 adjacent to it a depression in which the base end of the ladder, used in 

 entering and leaving the structure, rested. At the southeast side was a 

 ventilator consisting of a short tunnel leading from the room to the 

 bottom of a vertical shaft, the upper end of which o]:)ened to the air on 

 the surface of the ground beyond the confines of the house. 



The ventilator was just what its name implies. When a fire was 

 burning in the pit in the center of the room the heat rising from it 

 and passing ofif through the smoke hole at the top would have a 

 tendency to draw fresh, cold air down through the shaft and tunnel 

 and into the room. This same feature is found in the ceremonial 

 chambers, or kivas, of the many roomed houses of later periods. 

 Evidence has shown that the feature was not originally designed for 

 such a purpose but represents a modified survival of the entrance 

 found in older houses, dwellings of the period just preceding that to 

 w^hich the Arizona ruins belong. In most of the houses there was an 

 upright slab of stone set in the floor between the ventilator opening 

 and the fire pit (fig. 170). This is called the deflector and was so 



