12 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 82 



would bring up from depths of 3 to 6 feet an old rusty horse- 

 shoe, baling wire, a tobacco can or a fragment of a modern glazed 

 dish, all evidences of a former disturbance. During the course of our 

 operations, 16 major tests were made. Some of these extended over a 

 part of a room only, whereas others included as many as three or four 

 adjacent dwellings.' 



We explored, in whole or in part, 29 rooms ; of these 22 had been 

 destroyed by fire and consequently contained greater or lesser quanti- 

 ties of the desired charred timbers. All unburned rooms were located 

 in the northeast section of the pueblo which had apparently been 

 abandoned and covered with debris while the dwellings to the west 

 were yet occupied. At a time subsequent to the abandonment of the 

 old northeast section it seems that the entire remaining inhabited part 

 of the pueblo was destroyed by fire, for apparently the same fate befell 

 room after room from the extreme north to the extreme south ends. 

 This wholesale burning is very probably an indication of the work of 

 marauders, the domestic utensils and stores of corn found in nearly 

 every room forming additional evidence of the fact that the occupants 

 of the pueblo were forced to a hasty evacuation. 



x\pproximately 1,200 specimens of charcoal were collected at Show- 

 low. A large proportion of these are small fragments of roof timbers, 

 sections of branches, or pieces of split pine from roof members. Large 

 sections of timbers, less frequently found, are the more desirable, since 

 from them the actual cutting dates of the trees may usually be derived. 

 Cutting dates, furthermore, under normal circumstances signify con- 

 struction dates. This is especially true when several timbers in the 

 same room terminate with the same year. The value of cutting dates 

 will be recognized at once, for they not only provide the actual con- 

 struction time of given rooms or parts of pueblos, but they also furnish 

 fairly reliable dates concerning the associated artifacts. 



To intimate, as we already have, that the true outside of a tree or the 

 first ring beneath the bark indicates the cutting date, may be assuming 

 too much without further explanation. Is it probable that the Pueblo 

 builders used the dead wood in forests in preference to felling living 

 trees ? 



The present Pueblo Indians, if unable to .salvage beams from 

 deserted habitations, go to the forest for fresh timber when this is 

 not furnished by the government. Several years ago in northeastern 



' On the plot of the Showlow ruin, fig. 2, the tests are designated by the 

 letter T and the rooms by the letter R. 



