208 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 176 



ings of the fort, particularly with respect to buildings ill which both 

 timber and adobe were employed. It seems probable that no detailed 

 plans for these buildings were prepared elsewhere, as at departmental 

 headquarters, and that actual design and construction were left 

 largely to the discretion of field officers. 



OTHER SITE UNITS 



The ground plan of Fort Stevenson, of 1879, shows the location of 

 several sinks or latrines, but no other details of these necessary build- 

 ings have been preserved. The position of those originally located 

 at the rear of the buildings on the north side of the parade ground had 

 been completely obscured by many years of cultivation in that part of 

 the site of the post, but several smaller depressions were still visible 

 at the rear of the buildings on the south side, near the edge of the 

 bank (fig. 15). These depressions were apparently undisturbed since 

 the pits were abandoned, and were clearly marked by a luxuriant 

 growth of long grass as well as by the actual contour of the ground at 

 those points. 



Two of these pits were excavated, at the rear of the site of the 

 Hospital and in the approximate location of two shown in 1879. For 

 convenience, these two sites were designated as Latrine No. 1 and 

 Latrine No. 2. Excavation provided groups of informative objects, 

 the provenience of which is clearer than for some objects excavated 

 at other sites about the post. The two pits appear to have been used 

 during successive time periods — during the military period (No. 2) 

 and during the subsequent Indian school period (No. 1). Little was 

 preserved that indicated anything of original construction, aside from 

 the pits themselves. 



Among the buildings mentioned as having been sold at auction in 

 1897 are various "closets," and the privy buildings originally stand- 

 ing in this location were doubtless moved at that time or subsequently. 

 There had been some slump inward from the upper edges of the pits, 

 and the dimensions of length and width shown on the accompanying 

 plan were taken at the midpoint of the earth walls of the pits. These 

 walls had originally been very nearly vertical, but the pits were 

 somewhat smaller at the bottom than at the surface. 



Latrine No. 1 was an unlined pit, which had been dug to a depth of 

 approximately 3 feet 6 inches below the present ground surface, and 

 measured approximately 8 feet long (east-west) by 4 feet 6 inches 

 wide (north-south). The original pit had penetrated fine-grained 

 surface soil into subsurface gravel. There had been no reinforcement 

 of the earth walls, and no construction materials were found that 

 might have been derived from the building that had stood over the 

 pit. Tlie various objects found there clearly demonstrated that the 

 pit had been in use primarily (perhaps exclusively) during the years 



