THE ANCIENT BASKET MAKERS OF SOUTHEASTERN UTAH 



modern times, save in this restricted area, the throwing-stick, 



whoso nearest neighbor is found in Chihuahua, Mexico, in the 



form of the "atlatl," an implement of war concerning weapons 



which wonderful tales wore 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 (A burying the dead. 



The Basket Makers lived in eaves, but the investigations in 



this region furnish no evidences of their having had stone hou 



In some of the eaves the houses of the Cliff Dwellers 



Dwellings. 



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 tl 



ms are as mueh 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 tl 

 f natural form, never having been changed l>v pi 

 Mo skulls of this shape are found in the stone cliff hou 

 that are in the same caves, and no flattened skulls are found in 

 the underground rooms. Articles found in the rooms beneath 

 the cliff dwellii to some extent, different from those ob- 



1 in the stone houses abo\ 



Wetherill makes mention of a great many depressions in the 

 form of "pot-h< «ne of which were lined with l>aked clay: 



their use may have been, primarily, the storing of 

 grain or pro ndary and final utili Burial, 



tion wa In these carefully prepared places, the 



buried. They were doubled up and 



:t the bottom of the hoi | with beauti- 



ful feather or rabbit -skin r nd finally with I 



matter \vh. r quality of the other m 



articles might I Imosl invariably u 



