THE ANCIENT BASKET MAKERS OF SOUTHEASTERN UTAH 



modern times, save in this restricted area, the throwing-stick, 

 whose nearest neighbor is found in Chihuahua, Mexico, in the 

 form of the "atlatl," an implement of war concerning weapons 

 which wonderful tales were told by the early chroni- and 



clers of New Spain. There are other implements and Utensils, 

 utensils peculiar to this people, one of which' is similar to the 

 rabbit-stick used by the Hopi Indians of to-day ; but the most 

 striking features are the absence of houses in the caves and the 

 manner of burying the dead. 



The Basket Makers lived in caves, but the investigations in 

 this region furnish no evidences of their having had stone houses. 

 In some of the caves the houses of the Cliff Dwellers 

 have been found over the remains of the earlier Basket 

 Makers. In relation to the rooms excavated by the Basket 

 Makers, McLoyd and Graham say: "Some of the skulls in this 

 collection were obtained from underground rooms that had been 

 excavated in the clay bottoms of the caves. The largest of these 

 rooms are as much as twenty-two feet in diameter. They have 

 been filled in with ashes and other refuse, and the stone cliff 

 houses constructed over them. The heads taken from these 

 rooms are of natural form, never having been changed by pres- 

 sure. No skulls of this shape are found in the stone cliff houses 

 that are in the same caves, and no flattened skulls are found in 

 the underground rooms. Articles found in the rooms beneath 

 the cliff dwellings are, to some extent, different from those ob- 

 tained in the stone houses above." 



Wetherill makes mention of a great many depressions in the 

 form of "pot-holes," some of which were lined with baked clay: 

 their use may have been, primarily, the storing of Mode of 

 grain or provisions, but a secondary and final utiliza- Burial, 

 tion was as a grave. In these carefully prepared places, the 

 bodies of the people were buried. They were doubled up and 

 placed at the bottom of the hole, then covered with beauti- 

 ful feather or rabbit-skin robes and finally with baskets, 

 either several small ones or one large carrying basket. No 

 matter what the character or quality of the other mortuary 

 articles might be, the basket was almost invariably in evidence. 



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