48 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I47 



Mesa Verde was for the most part of the kind that could be called 

 McElmo." Under the circumstances Brew took a second look at the 

 McElmo and decided on the spot "to call it early Mesa Verde." 



Early Mesa Verde, or McElmo, Black-on-white is a conspicuous 

 variety at Chaco Canyon ruins, large and small. It was abundant in 

 late deposits at Pueblo Bonito and upcanyon ; it was preponderant at 

 Pueblo del Arroyo (Judd, 1959, p. 175; Vivian, 1959, p. 26). Its 

 oif-color white slip, its rounded or flattened and tick-marked rim, its 

 black organic paint, and its near-Mesa Verde designs separate it from 

 other local types. It was a late arrival at Pueblo Bonito since, in 12 

 feet of West Court rubbish, Roberts and Amsden recovered no sherd 

 of it below the upper 4 feet. Hence McElmo Black-on-white serves 

 as an index to the comparative age of household sweepings wherever 

 found in the valley. 



At Le)dt Kin and Be 50-51, small-house sites opposite Pueblo 

 Bonito, the presence of Mancos Black-on-white and McElmo Black- 

 on-white proved puzzling to Brand, Kluckhohn, Button, and their 

 colleagues from the University of New Mexico because, as I read 

 their evidence (Brand, et al., 1937; Button, 1938; Kluckhohn and 

 Reiter, 1939), all were too intent upon a greater antiquity. Casual 

 sherd samples I collected in 1920 at half a dozen small sites on the 

 south side of the canyon between The Gap and Wirito's Rincon 

 (U.S.N.M. Nos. 315841-867), and perhaps including Be 50-51 and 

 Leyit Kin, contained such a large proportion with Mesa Verde-like 

 designs I classified them at the time as P. Ill and thus contem- 

 poraneous more or less with the major Chaco ruins (Judd, 1921, 

 p. 102). 



Based on this 1920 judgment, our Pueblo Bonito stratigraphy, 

 and excavation data since published, Leyit Kin and Be 50-51 appear 

 to me no more than P. Ill offshoots from Pueblo Bonito or Chettro 

 Kettle. Use of cottonwood and pinyon vigas (Kluckhohn and Reiter, 

 1939, p. 33) was a P. II trait at Old Bonito; "keyhole" kivas with 

 high masonry pilasters and above-floor ventilators echo the Mesa 

 Verde country. Only one kiva, No. 4 at Be 51, had a subfloor 

 ventilating system; all pottery types reported, irrespective of name, 

 are varieties represented in the 12-foot-deep rubbish in the West 

 Court at Pueblo Bonito. The preponderance of McElmo Black-on- 

 white at Be 50-51 together with rude masonry when tabular sandstone 

 was readily accessible, adult burials in rooms, and use of potsherds 

 as wall chinking combine to suggest a late P. Ill, Mesa Verde-like 

 occupancy. Seven timbers from Leyit Kin were all felled in A.B. 

 1039 (Button, 1938, p. 23). That an underlying pit-house was en- 



