8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I47 



are mostly from Old Bonito. With few exceptions they represent the 

 culture of the Old Bonitians, a P. II people, and not that of their 

 P. Ill coresidents. 



If an aura of commercialism still hangs over tlie work of the Hyde 

 brothers at Pueblo Bonito it is more a reflection of the period than of 

 association with Richard Wetherill, whose undeniable interest in 

 archeology is not easily divorced from his activity as a collector. 

 Relic hunting was legitimate and unrestricted at the time of the 

 Hyde Expeditions, 1896-1899; anyone could dig for relics and keep 

 what was found. This wide recognition of "finder's keeper" was 

 evident even at Pueblo Bonito where the Hydes repeatedly had to 

 purchase specimens their own employees had pilfered (Pepper, 1905, 

 p. 190; 1920, p. 330; McNitt, 1957, p. 167). One eastern museum 

 curator, irresistibly tempted by reports of fabulous discoveries, even 

 ravaged a couple rooms after the Hydes had withdrawn at the end of 

 their first season (Pepper, 1920, p. 210). Transient guests at expedi- 

 tion headquarters amused themselves by searching for souvenirs in 

 the nearby ruin. Not until 1906 was a Federal law passed to prohibit 

 unauthorized digging on the public domain and then largely to check 

 the exploitation of Pueblo Bonito and other Chaco Canyon ruins. 



THE PUEBLO BONITO EXPEDITIONS 



Twenty years after the Hyde Expeditions came to an end and prior 

 to the announced publication of Pepper's field notes, the National 

 Geographic Society authorized the explorations reported herein and 

 previously. Originally planned for 5 years but subsequently extended 

 two more, the Pueblo Bonito Expeditions were expected to discover 

 what factors had brought about the extraordinary Chaco Canyon 

 civilization in what had come to be an unwatered, impoverished, and 

 relatively uninhabited region. The Society's Committee on Research 

 desired to identify the builders of Pueblo Bonito, if possible; to dis- 

 cover where they came from and where they went. The agricultural 

 possibilities of the valley in prehistoric times, its then sources of water 

 and fuel, and the location and extent of the ancient forests that had 

 furnished timbers for the roofs of Pueblo Bonito and neighboring 

 communities likewise were subjects for inquiry (Judd, 1922a, p. 117). 

 Not until Pepper's volume appeared in the early summer of 1921 was 

 it known that comparable studies had originally been planned for the 

 Hyde Expeditions (Wissler, in Pepper, 1920, p. 1). 



On the ground plan herein (fig. 2) rooms numbered 1-190 are 

 those opened by the Hyde Expeditions. To correlate our studies with 



