NO. 2 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, 1 924 9I 



Among the many interesting discoveries made in 1924 is one which 

 affords some conception of the community pride which prevailed 

 during the heyday of Puehlo Bonito. The two principal refuse 

 mounds, where floor sweepings and other trash was deposited, were 

 each surrounded by stone walls. These were increased in height as the 

 mounds grew in elevation. Their obvious purpose was to prevent 

 scattering of ashes and light debris before the tireless canyon winds. 

 Two flights of stone steps were later constructed over the northern 

 wall of the east mound to facilitate access to its summit. 



Other walls whose intended function remains unsolved were also 

 exposed during the summer. One of these, at no point more than 

 two feet high, extends in a northeasterly direction a distance of 500 

 feet from the outer southeast corner of the ruin. 



Explorations in Pueblo Bonito were brought practically to com- 

 pletion by the 1924 Expedition. There remain for next year additional 

 chronologic studies and minor excavations, the fundamental purpose 

 of which will be to explain certain still doubtful matters of prime 

 importance. It is already evident that Pueblo Bonito was occupied 

 throughout a much longer period than was originally suspected. 

 Amalgamation of the two distinct groups that comprised its later 

 population resulted in a prehistoric village whose fame reached the 

 remotest corner of the Southwest. During the period of its greatest 

 affl'Uence, Pueblo Bonito was undoubtedly a center at which repre- 

 sentatives of many unrelated tribes met for barter and trade. Evidence 

 has been obtained that the Bonitians engaged in commerce with primi- 

 tive peoples of the Pacific Coast and even so far distant as the valley 

 of Mexico ; indeed, there seems to be no cultural area in the Southwest 

 of comparable antiquity whose members were not attracted to Pueblo 

 Bonito. The current explorations of the National Geographic Society, 

 therefore, have a direct bearing upon the distribution of ancient 

 Pueblo peoples. With a considerable portion of its unwritten history 

 recorded ; with the years of its construction determined with reason- 

 able accuracy — a former hope that seems more and more within the 

 realm of possibility — Pueblo Bonito is destined to become a yard- 

 stick, so to speak, by which the culture of other prehistoric south- 

 western ruins may be gauged. As Pueblo Bonito was the most influ- 

 ential village yet discovered in the Pueblo area of pre-Columbian 

 times so is it today the most important ruin in that area — a ruin 

 which holds the key to many secrets that have long puzzled American 

 archeologists. 



