10 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I47 



Brown-with-polished-black-interior occurred in all but five strata: 

 B, S, U, V, and W. A single Mesa Verde sherd was recovered in 

 Layer E, the bottom of it 3 feet 7 inches below the surface. Proto- 

 Mesa Verde fragments appeared above the 9^ foot level but not 

 below. This 20- foot intermixture of early and late pottery came as 

 such a complete surprise I questioned our findings and cut another 

 column. 



Next, I undertook to examine surrounding soils by means of 7 pits, 

 4 to 12 feet deep, dug at various distances and in various directions 

 from Pueblo Bonito. None exhibited more than stratified sand, wind- 

 blown and water-washed, with intervening silt layers, occasional 

 lenses of gravel, bits of charcoal, and chance potsherds. A humus 

 layer that might have identified a once-cultivated field was nowhere 

 seen. And, despite a secret hope, none of my seven pits revealed any 

 trace of the long-sought Bonitian burial ground. 



We began our second season with a third column through West 

 Mound rubbish and followed it with an East Mound test. Two years 

 later we tried both mounds again. Then, in 1925, after my own 

 efforts had failed, I invited Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., to join my 

 field staff and take charge of the local problem in stratigraphy. The 

 invitation was extended upon recommendation of Dr. A. V. Kidder, 

 a long-time friend and confidant, and chiefly in recognition of 

 Roberts's convincing analysis of BM.III-P.I pottery from the Pagosa- 

 Piedra region, southwestern Colorado. At Pueblo Bonito Roberts was 

 assisted by the late Monroe Amsden after the latter, under special 

 permit from the Department of the Interior, had concluded a study 

 of 16 small-house ruins in and south of Chaco Canyon (U.S.N.M. 

 Nos. 329803-45). 



As graduate students in anthropology Amsden, at Washington, 

 D. C, and Roberts, in Cambridge, Mass., had assisted during the 

 winter of 1924-25 in analyzing the Pueblo Bonito potsherds I had 

 previously collected. Failing health compelled Amsden to relinquish 

 his part in this joint undertaking thus leaving to Roberts principal 

 responsibility for our study of Pueblo Bonito ceramics, a study that 

 had made scant progress prior to unexpected discoveries early in 1925. 



Intramural stratigraphy. — During our fourth season, 1924, we had 

 cleared the West Court to its last recognizable occupation level (pi. 

 7, upper) and, in so doing, had discovered that village waste and 

 blown sand were piled up 6 feet 7 inches — almost ceiling high — against 

 the outer east wall of Old Bonitian Rooms 329-330. Consequently 

 one of our first tasks of the 1925 season was to seek explanation for 



