2l8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I47 



An exploratory north-south trench at this point (fig. 24, b) re- 

 vealed stratified village debris sloping down from east and west. 

 To keep it in bounds, retaining walls had been erected at the near 

 end of each mound but later debris had overflowed them. Subse- 

 quently both walls were raised a few courses and were again over- 

 flowed. Nevertheless, under these accumulations and apparently on 

 the same adobe stratum as that in the fenced area noted above, we 

 happened upon evidence of limited, unscreened domestic activity — 

 a slab-lined fireplace 19 inches below the surface and 15 inches above 

 the base of the West Mound enclosure. 



At 85 feet south of its northeast corner this West Mound enclo- 

 sure is abutted by a foundationless, nondescript wall 19 inches high 

 by 22 inches wide — a wall that extends east and south until lost among 

 broken stonework projecting from the East Mound. Although some 

 of these fragmentary walls may have been built to check the outward 

 spread of mound rubbish others clearly were designed to confine 

 floodwaters and direct them past the village. Here, again, the ac- 

 cumulated floor sweepings, debris of demolition, and wind-blown 

 sand slope down and away from the mound crest. 



THE WEST MOUND TRENCH 



Our West Mound Trench (fig. 7), which largely provoked this 

 chapter, held many surprises. Foremost, as previously explained, 

 was the admixture of early and late pottery and the presence of 

 constructional waste throughout. Our stratigraphic columns of 1921, 

 1922, and 1924 were each cut to clean sand at a depth of 20 feet or 

 thereabout (pi. 6, left). Early in 1925, still seeking an explanation 

 for the confused nature of the mound debris, we extended the trench 

 northward to Room 136 and thence through the West Court to 

 Kiva Q. Later in the season, at Kirk Bryan's suggestion, it was 

 extended southward to intercept his buried channel, a subject of 

 much interest that summer (Bryan, 1954, p. 33). 



In this 2- way extension we came upon evidence of a former east- 

 west watercourse, an open gully under the south rooms of the pueblo, 

 that invited the dumping of village waste. As this waste increased 

 in bulk it not only filled the one-time channel but forced its transient 

 floodwaters southward into a succession of substitute channels. 



Between mound and ruin our trench averaged 11 feet deep. The 

 bottom of it was a bed of clay-streaked sand with a scattering of 

 gravel. The dumping of village rubbish began early and on top of 

 one early pile we cut through a small, clay-lined hearth, made to 



