morris] RUINS ON THE MESAS 187 
It may well be that the circular pit houses constitute the prototype 
of the kiva, although the only essential features of the kiva discernible 
in those examined were the circular form and the fire pit. 
The writer believes that future investigation will show most of the 
depressions in and about the pre-Pueblo ruins west of the La Plata 
to be the remains of pit rooms. 
Near a small ruin I observed a number of fragments of an archaic 
type of coil ware lying on the ground approximately in the form 
of a circle, as if a vessel had been broken on the spot. In carefully 
gathering these I found a large fragment protruding from the soil. 
It developed that the surface fragments composed the neck of a 
large vessel, the greater part of which was embedded in the hard 
red clay. It is shown completely restored in plate 63, a. 
Ruins at Site No. 11—About a mile slightly north of east from the 
building first described, upon a level-topped divide east of Spring 
Canyon, is another group of small ruins, some 8 or 10 in number. 
It was in-one of these that the method of constructing the houses on 
the mesas was first definitely determined. Excavations laid bare 
three of the walls of a room, which had been erected as follows: 
Shallow trenches were dug where it was desired to place the walls. 
In these poles averaging about 4 inches in diameter were set side by 
side, and held upright by stones wedged into the trenches on both 
sides of their butts. The poles were then coated with mud till they 
were almost, if not quite, hidden, and a strong wall superficially 
resembling one of adobe was formed. It is probable that the roof 
consisted of beams, twigs, and bark covered with clay. The presence 
of the charred stumps of the poles still resting in the trenches be- 
tween the rows of stones, and the large quantities of plaster burned 
to a bricklike consistency, smooth on one surface and bearing upon 
the other the distinct imprints of poles, twigs, and knots, with the 
finger prints of the primitive masons, shows these mesa dwellings 
to have been the structural analogues of the modern post houses of 
the Mexicans. 
In a pottery-strewn space we found a Jone burial. The decomposed 
skeleton was in the usual flexed position not more than 4 inches 
below the surface. In front of the face were a small bowl and a 
rude globular bottle, both without decoration (pls. 64, ¢; 72, 6). 
A refuse mound on the same divide yielded an interesting grave. 
Some animal had dug out a calcaneum and a tibia at the east edge 
of the circular heap, and other leg bones were found just beneath 
the surface. Three feet below these was the complete skeleton of an 
adult. The grave proved to be a conical pit, in which the body 
had been placed in a sitting posture, facing southwest. By the 
right side were the two bowls shown in plate 64, e and /, and a 
