192 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I47 



The latest Kiva R bench measures 29 inches high and varies in 



width from 40 inches at the north to 52 inches at the south (pi. 69, 

 lower). Upon it are six pilasters averaging 17 inches wide by 8 inches 

 high and set back about 3 inches from the front edge. At the rear, 

 between pilasters, upright posts varying in number from 13 to 16 held 

 close against the masonry a mass of sticks and brush, rather than the 

 bunchgrass noted in other kivas. Sacrificial offerings were present 

 in the pilaster logs and between some of the timbers crossed above 

 them. One such included part of the bill of a redhead duck {Nyroca 

 americana — Field No. 1486). A turquoise fragment from Pilaster 

 No. 3 fitted others from No. 4. Elsewhere, parts of the same orna- 

 ment were recovered from two or more pilasters. 



There was no vault west of the Kiva R fireplace but at the north, 

 6 inches above the floor and opposite the south recess, was a neat little 

 niche, 7 inches wide by 11 inches high and 15 inches deep, unplas- 

 tered but containing a small Old Bonitian bowl and a battered murex 

 shell (Judd, 1954, pi. 82, a, b). 



Directly beneath that niche is a floor repository, 8^ by 11^ inches 

 inside and 38 inches to its clay bottom. Its aperture was covered 

 by a squared sandstone tablet sunk to floor level. Three years later, 

 1927, when we returned for further observations, we learned that 

 the present Kiva R bench, 29 inches high, was preceded by two others 

 and that our sub-floor repository actually extended to the bench of 

 the original, a total of 4 feet 9 inches. Also, the respository gave ac- 

 cess to an earlier niche, neatly plastered but empty, in the second-type 

 kiva bench (fig. 22). 



That portion of the original Old Bonitian bench exposed by our 

 test pit measured 22 inches high but varied in width from 9 to 13 

 inches. Its associated floor, at 6 feet 7 inches, overlay a thick layer of 

 shale chips and chunks of dried adobe from razed walls and roofs. 

 Upon that floor, however, were four successive layers of sand and 

 water-soaked mortar each layer, like the original, slanting toward the 

 middle. The uppermost of these four, darker than its predecessors 

 and ash-strewn, was, in turn, overlain by successive strata of wall 

 plaster and shale. 



Nineteen inches of first-type masonry, thickly plastered and whit- 

 ened, rose vertically above the Old Bonitian bench and thus provided 

 a solid foundation for the second-type bench that followed, 29 inches 

 high. Above this latter were 9 inches of what I consider construc- 

 tional debris and then the latest Kiva R floor with its enclosing bench 

 of excellent laminate stonework (pi. 24, right). 



