NO. II PUEBLO RUINS IN ARIZONA — HAURY AND HARGRAVE I3 



Arizona, I observed an Indian bringing in a wagon-load of poles for a 

 new dwelling and all were freshly cut. In ancient times when trees 

 had to be felled with stone axes, the choice of green over dead wood 

 can easily be understood ; the seasoning that a dead tree gets considera- 

 bly increases its resistance against blows of a stone axe. 



Doctor Douglass has found that large areas of dead timber, killed by 

 some natural cause, are rare in the Southwest. It is improbable that 

 the ancient Pueblo Indian was accustomed to search for such regions 

 which might be far from his pueblo, or to hunt isolated dead trees 

 in the forest when the more easily cut living trees were available on all 

 sides. That an occasional dead tree was utilized cannot be questioned, 

 but facts derived in the study of timbers frorri many ruins indicate the 

 common use of trees cut while growing. 



Several pieces of charcoal with bark intact were found in Showlow 

 and Pinedale ruins during our excavations. This is a good indication 

 of green wood, as bark on dead trees in the forest soon falls off. On 

 the other hand, it was customary at Pueblo Bonito ^ and undoubtedly 

 in many other pueblos to remove the bark from roofing beams before 

 they were used. Such a custom would readily account for the lack 

 of more bark-covered wood from Showlow and Pinedale. 



Where a number of beams in the same room yield the same year of 

 cutting, it is far more plausible to suppose that the trees were cut 

 simultaneously while growing than that they were collected when dead. 

 In the latter event their ring-records would not terminate with the same 

 year, unless gathered in a large area where trees were killed simul- 

 taneously. Such regions Doctor Douglass has found to occur but 

 rarely. 



On these grounds, we are safe in saying that the final rings in an 

 overwhelming majority of beams from ruins indicate the actual year 

 of cutting. 



It would be useless to go into the detail of circumstances under 

 which the numerous fragments of charcoal were found, but of the 

 larger specimens brief record seems desirable. 



Five rooms opened in test ii, in the extreme north end of the 

 pueblo (pi. I, fig. i), yielded a number of precious beam fragments. 

 Fortunately, this section was undisturbed except for the removal some 

 years previously of the shallow surface soil. Among the wood speci- 

 mens from room 4 of this test is one bearing the field catalogue number 

 HH-39. It is a beam section 7 inches in diameter and approximately 

 10 inches long, charred to a point at one end and internally decayed at 



*Judd, N. M., September, 1925, p. 237. 



