﻿74 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. ^2 



development in the same cave is derived from both ceramic and archi- 

 tectural studies. The indications are that after the earth-lodge con- 

 dition was outgrown the floor of the cave where the evidence occurs 

 was used as a cemetery, and the survivors constructed their new 

 homes at the other end of the cave in the form of cliff houses. 

 Although no satisfactory scheme of the chronological secjuence of 

 different types of ^^lesa Verde pottery has been worked out, it is 

 most important to pay some attention to its bearing on the age of the 

 above-mentioned buildings. 



The mortuary pottery (fig. 79) from the Far View Tower cemetery 

 belongs to a primitive type quite unlike any yet recorded from Mesa 

 Verde cliff dwellings. The most exceptional features are the numer- 

 ous varieties of coiled, corrugated, undecorated ware. Figure 80, 

 restored from a fragment, and figure 81 show one of these exceptional 

 bowls. A similar bowl with a blackened inner surface occurs else- 

 where in the southwest, as on the Little Colorado, but has never been 

 described from the Mesa Verde. A comparison of ceramic objects 

 from the cemetery of Far View Tower (fig. 82) indicates it belongs 

 to an ancient type related to Earth Lodge A, described in the explora- 

 tions pamphlet for 1919/ Attempts have been made to show an 

 architectural evolution from an earth lodge with roof and walls of 

 logs and mud into buildings constructed of well-laid horizontal stone 

 masonry. There is a chronological development in technique, form 

 and decoration of pottery from the simple to the complex, but those 

 who have studied clift'-house pottery have not yet succeeded in arrang- 

 ing the different kinds in chronological sequence. 



Each ceramic area in our southwest has its distinct facies. Mesa 

 Verde pottery excels all others in its geometrical decoration. Con- 

 ventionalized designs and life figures on it are few in number and 

 crude in execution, but linear designs are abundant and varied. In 

 the prehistoric Hopi pottery, where there are few life figures and the 

 majority of designs are geometric or highly conventionalized, there is 

 nothing showing successive steps in the development of designs. In 

 those ruins where geometric figures (fig. 83) predominate there is 

 little to show their evolution. The pottery from the Mimbres Valley, 

 New Mexico, decorated with both fine geometric and realistic figures, 

 gives us no clue to evolution of different typical naturalistic designs. 

 Apparently the three types, geometric, conventional, and realistic, are 

 distinct from their very origin and it is difiicult to prove that one type 



'Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. 72, No. i. 



