—_—— 
THE ANCIENT BASKET MAKERS OF SOUTHEASTERN UTAH 
modern times, save in this restricted area,—the throwing-stick, 
whose nearest neighbor is found in Chihuahua, Mexico, in the 
form of the “atlatl,’’ an implement of war concerning Weapons 
which wonderful tales were told by the early chroni- and 
clers of New Spain. There are other implements and Utensils. 
utensils peculiar to this people, one of which is similar to the 
rabbit-stick used by the Hopi Indians of to-day; but the most 
striking features are the absence of houses in the caves and the 
manner of burying the dead. 
The Basket Makers lived in caves, but the investigations in 
this region furnish no evidences of their having had stone houses. 
In some of the caves the houses of the Cliff Dwellers 
have been found over the remains of the earlier Basket 
Makers. In relation to the rooms excavated by the Basket 
Makers, McLoyd and Graham say: ‘‘Some of the skulls,in this 
collection were obtained from underground rooms that had been 
excavated in the clay bottoms of the caves. The largest of these 
rooms are as much as twenty-two feet in diameter. They have 
been filled in with ashes and other refuse, and the stone cliff 
houses constructed over them.. The heads taken from these 
rooms are of natural form, never having been changed by pres- 
sure. No skulls of this shape are found in the stone cliff houses 
that are in the same caves, and no flattened skulls are found in 
the underground rooms. Articles found in the rooms beneath 
the cliff dwellings are, to some extent, different from those ob- 
tained in the stone houses above.” 
Wetherill makes mention of a great many depressions in the 
form of “ pot-holes,”’ some of which were lined with baked clay: 
their use may have been, primarily, the storing of Mode of 
grain or provisions, but a secondary and final utiliza- Burial. 
tion was as a grave. In these carefully prepared places, the 
bodies of the people were buried. They were doubled up and 
placed at the bottom of the hole, then covered with beauti- 
ful feather or rabbit-skin robes and finally with baskets, 
either several small ones or one large carrying basket. No 
matter what the character or quality of the other mortuary 
articles might be, the basket was almost invariably in evidence. 
7 
Dwellings. 
