32 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I47 



Conflagrations. — Pepper repeatedly cites evidence of fire in rooms 

 excavated by the Hyde Expeditions, and we noted other instances 

 of charred timbers, smoke-blackened v^ralls, and burned sand upon 

 the floor. Fire was an understandable hazard of occupancy, but the 

 possibility of fires set by raiding parties long after desertion of the 

 village is not to be dismissed lightly. Throughout the Plateau 

 Province one may hear tales of ancestral Navaho, Ute, and Apache 

 warriors who drove the Cliff Dwellers and contemporary peoples 

 from their homes and then fired the buildings. Holsinger (MS., 

 p. 17) may have been echoing such a story when he reported that about 

 40 rooms in the two easternmost rows at Pueblo Bonito had been 

 burned, presumably by enemies. 



Whatever the cause, fire had gutted many of these east-side rooms 

 some time after they were vacated. In Room 257, for example, sand 

 varying in depth from 19 inches at the north end to 27 inches at the 

 south had collected upon the floor before the ceiling burned and 

 collapsed. 



Wall plaster in Room 260 was fire-reddened above a sand deposit 

 several inches deep. Blown sand 4^ feet in depth filled the southwest 

 corner of Room 266 sloping thence to 18 inches in the opposite cor- 

 ner. Charred timbers lay upon that sand with more blown sand above 

 the timbers and then masonry fallen from the second and third stories. 

 The third-story south wall of Room 171 had collapsed and fallen 

 outward and its outermost building stones inexplicably were over- 

 lain by a layer of burned sand, sticks, and cedarbark — a post-abandon- 

 ment accumulation. 



Pepper (1920, fig. 131) pictures 11 Late Bonitian pitchers on 

 the floor of Room 99 half buried by stratified sand and only the 

 exposed portions burned. When we cleared Old Bonitian Room 298 

 we learned that fire had destroyed both the first- and second-story 

 ceilings but had barely scorched a blanket of wood chips spread over 

 the lower floor. Whether these evidences of fire at Pueblo Bonito 

 point to domestic carelessness or to post-occupancy raids is open to 

 question but there can be no doubt that such flimsy hearths as those 

 in Rooms 91 and 92 were ever-present dangers. 



Wind-borne sand. — Sand is everywhere present in Chaco Canyon 

 today, and wind-blown sand obviously was a daily annoyance to the 

 housewives of Pueblo Bonito. It blew through open doors and sifted 

 through ceilings. When Pepper entered Room 3 he found 2 or 3 

 feet of sand upon the floor; sand was 3 to 4 feet deep in Room 3a; 

 4 to 12 inches deep on the floor of Room 92 (second story of 3a). 



