54 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I47 



opposite direction, from north to south, but neither is yet prepared 

 to put a finger on the place of origin. 



At Pueblo Bonito we have the distinct P. II culture of Old Bonito 

 and the better known P. Ill culture of the Late Bonitians. Both were 

 born somewhere among the sage-covered mesas and valleys of south- 

 eastern Utah and southwestern Colorado. There, among those valleys 

 and mesas, the whole panorama of Pueblo architectural development 

 lies exposed to view — a development that extends from single, earth- 

 walled pit-houses to the wide-curving post-and-mud surface com- 

 munities of P. I, to the wall- width masonry and crescentic grouping of 

 P. II dwellings and storerooms and, finally, to the many-roomed, 

 multiple-storied towns of Pueblo III. Somewhere in that far-reach- 

 ing scene, and most likely where Pueblo II flourished, eventually 

 will be found the cross-road from which the so-called Mesa Verde 

 and the Chaco peoples took their separate ways. 



The masonry-lined subfloor vault of Chaco kivas, although of 

 unknown purpose, seems so unusual a feature its origin and develop- 

 ment should be traceable. But nowhere among published descriptions 

 do I find anything even remotely comparable except the oval depres- 

 sions, filled and floored over, reported by Roberts (1939, p. 106) in 

 P. I Structure 12 at Whitewater, Arizona, and by O'Bryan (1950, 

 p. 34) in a P. II kiva at Site 102, Mesa Verde National Park, Colo., 

 150 miles distant. 



At some as yet undetermined point in Pueblo prehistory, clan 

 ritualists replaced the four traditional roof-supporting posts with 

 masonry columns and later replaced these with low-log-enclosed 

 pilasters. At some still unidentified stopping place they introduced 

 a new, subfloor type of ventilator, eliminating the deflector. The 

 one Morris (1939, p. 53) describes in a P. II kiva under Building I, 

 Site 39, is the earliest of which I am aware but a companion kiva, 

 Number 2, was typically Mesa Verde with its 6 masonry pilasters, a 

 deep south banquette, and a lateral ventilating system. I know of 

 no horizontal, log-enclosed pilaster earlier than those in the bowl- 

 shaped P. II kivas at Pueblo Bonito. 



Lowry Ruin, the West Pueblo at Aztec, Solomon's Ruin near 

 Bloomfield, N. Mex., and the short-lived structure on Chimney 

 Rock Mesa near Pagosa Springs, Colo. (Jeancon, 1922; Roberts, 

 1922), are among those repeatedly described as probable colonies from 

 Chaco Canyon. Available tree-ring dates as listed by Smiley (1951) 

 lend credence to this theory of colonization since a majority — 49 from 

 Aztec, A.D. 1110-1125; 9 from Lowry, 987-1086; 3 from Solomon's 



