V. THE NORTHEAST FOUNDATION COMPLEX 



What we called "The Northeast Foundation Complex" is just 

 that — a. complex of mud-and-stone foundations never built upon but 

 intended for an addition that would have doubled the ground area 

 of Pueblo Bonito. The plan was conceived by Late Bonitian architects 

 but was abandoned by them in favor of a substitute plan. The 

 abandoned foundations began as a thin wedge built against the ex- 

 ternal second-type masonry of Room 297 and extend thence ir- 

 regularly eastward until, more or less abruptly, they came to an end 

 509 feet east of Room 176 (fig. 11). 



We discovered this foundation complex quite unexpectedly while 

 clearing away blown sand and fallen stonework outside the northeast 

 arc of the pueblo (pi. 41, upper). Here the outer wall foundations, 

 varying in height from 15 inches (Room 188) to 22 inches (R. 184), 

 had been built between and against foundations projected from our 

 outlying complex. These intruding foundations, like those of the 

 outer row of rooms, rested upon 20-24 inches of blown sand contain- 

 ing a scattering of clay pellets and occasional potsherds, both early 

 and late. Two feet lower, or 4 feet below the top of the founda- 

 tions, we came upon a hard, fairly smooth silt surface. This "pave- 

 ment" (to quote my 1923 notes) looked so artificial I decided to 

 explore it further. 



Beginning outside Room 184 we cut a 5-foot-wide trench and 

 followed the pavement on a Magnetic North line 115 feet where, 

 unexpectedly, we encountered a triangular bank of adobe mud packed 

 against the lower terrace of the Braced-up Cliff. As we bared it, that 

 adobe bank measured 8 feet high by 13 feet, front to back, and about 

 6 feet across its irregular top. A limited test at the foot of the 

 triangle revealed underlying adobe of unknown depth — adobe that 

 was gritty, hard, and broken as though composed of water-softened 

 and trampled chunks of discarded mortar (pi. 42, left). 



The abutting and interlocking foundation units exposed by that 

 5-foot-wide trench, and all those adjoining, suggested our name 

 for the whole composite: "The Northeast Foundation Complex." 

 Each foundation unit was composed of loosely assembled pieces of 

 friable sandstone and mud mortar. So far as we could see they 

 were just ordinary foundations, varying in width and height but 

 otherwise differing in no way from foundations elsewhere (pi. 41, 



143 



