NO. 15 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I92I /T 



planted will germinate, but all experiments in that direction have 

 failed. There is no hope that any greater success will reward experi- 

 ments made with corn from this granary. In the centuries that have 

 elapsed since the mesa was deserted, corn seed left behind has lost 

 its vitality. 



The walls of a ruin called Mummy House, situated almost directly 

 under Sun Temple, are among the most carefully constructed on the 

 park. This ruin has one kiva which was cleaned out but not repaired. 

 A mummy (now in the Mesa Verde Park Museum) was found in this 

 ruin several years ago. Above it is Willow-tree House, practically 

 inaccessible. Ladders were put in place connecting the trail up the 

 canyon with Mummy House. A typical form of cliff house called 

 Oak-tree House, before and after repair, is shown in figures 76 and 77. 



One of the important ruins on the Alesa Verde, called Step House 

 by Nordenskiold, is situated in a cave 5 miles west of Spruce-tree 

 Camp. It presents to the archeologist one of the most instructive prob- 

 lems on the Mesa, and should be put in shape for visitors. In the floor 

 of this cave, which has been considerably dug over by Nordenskiold 

 and others, there was material bearing on a most interesting chrono- 

 logical problem, viz., the age of the cliff houses ; for the artifacts in 

 this place represent two different epochs in the cultural history of the 

 pure pueblo-cliff-dwelling type. Out of the floor of the cave there 

 projects the edges of upright slabs of stone showing the existence of 

 cists like those in Earth Lodge A. These suggest the slab-house cul- 

 ture; but at the other end is a building in the highest form of hori- 

 zontal masonry. The probability is that the former is the older con- 

 struction or that it was built by the most ancient people of the park, 

 who lived and were buried in that end of the cave, designated by 

 Nordenskiold a cemetery. Here we have evidences, both architectural 

 and ceramic, of former earth lodges or fragile walled buildings of the 

 prepuebloan or archaic culture. The original dwelling built b\- 

 people when they moved into Step House Cave was an earth lodge, 

 and the dwelling with horizontal masonry and kivas, at the other 

 end of the cavern, was a later development. The pottery of the 

 former is more archaic than that of the latter. Figure 78 illustrates 

 the most highly developed Mesa Verde pottery. We have, in other 

 words, indications of two distinct stages of development in Step 

 House Cave — one the earth lodge and the other the pure pueblo or 

 kiva style ; the former or earth construction situated at one end of the 

 cave, the latter stage at the other. This evidence of two stages of 



