NO. IO 



ARCHEOLOGY OF MIMBRES VALLEY FEWKES 



II 



There is considerable evidence of " pottery hunting " by amateurs 

 in the mounds of Oldtown, and it is said that several highly decor- 

 ated food bowls adorned with zoic figures have been taken from the 

 rooms. It appears that the ancient inhabitants here, as elsewhere, 

 practised house burial and that they deposited their dead in tile 

 contracted position, placing bowls over the crania (fig. i). 1 



The author excavated several buried skeletons from a rectangular 

 area situated about the middle of the Oldtown ruin, surrounded on 

 three sides by walls. The majority of the dead were accompanied 



FIG. i. Urn burial. (Schematic.) 



with shell beads and a few turquoise ornaments, and on one was 

 found a number of shell tinklers made of the spires of seashells. One 

 of the skeletons excavated by Mr. Osborn appeared to have been en- 

 closed in a stone cist with a flat slab of stone covering the skull. The 

 remains of a corner post supporting the building stood upright on this 

 slab. 2 In another case a skull was found broken into fragments by 

 the large stone that had covered it. Several skeletons had no bowls 



1 The drawings of pottery designs in this article were made by Mrs. M. W. 

 Gill; the stone and other objects were drawn by Mr. R. Weber. 



2 A significant feature in the Mimbres form of " urn burial " is the invariable 

 puncturing of the bowl inverted over the head. The ancient Peruvians in some 

 instances appear to have "killed" their mortuary bowls, and life figures 

 depicted on Peruvian pottery are sometimes arranged in pairs as in the 

 Mimbres. 



