Judd— Pueblo Bonito 
73 
were torn down and replaced; dwellings gave way to circular ceremonial cham¬ 
bers. These latter, ritualistically subterranean and preferably situated at the 
plaza edge, occasionally encroached upon the secular rooms. In such instances, 
the walls separating a block of four adjacent dwellings would be razed, the 
usable stone salvaged, and the lesser debris left where it fell. Upon such ac¬ 
cumulations, the new ceremonial chamber would be constructed, its required 
subterranean position being simulated by the relatively greater height of the 
surrounding walls. Beneath the houses and beneath the two public courts, foun¬ 
dations and partially razed walls evidence the extent of reconstructional opera¬ 
tions during the long continued occupancy of Pueblo Bonito. 
In the original village there were no external, ground floor doorways, but 
such entrances were provided for those dwellings first erected by the second 
group of inhabitants—entrances which subsequently were closed and plastered 
over. Now in rooms of third and fourth type masonry, lack of external doors 
is again noticeable; even the small ventilators, placed high in the walls, were re¬ 
duced in size or closed completely. (PL III, Pig. 2.) Prom these facts, together 
with other evidence disclosed during the course of the National Geographic So¬ 
ciety’s explorations, we may infer the prehistoric Bonitians were subjected to 
pressure from nomadic tribes and that the village folk were prompted, from 
time to time, to increase the impregnability of their communal home. Sporadic 
warfare, together with altered agricultural conditions, appear to have forced 
abandonment of Pueblo Bonito approximately one thousand years ago—an esti¬ 
mate now being confirmed through study of annual growth rings in timbers 
salvaged from the ruin. These ‘‘tree-ring” studies, in charge of Doctor A. E. 
Douglass, of the University of Arizona, bid fair to establish our first actual 
chronology in the archaeology of the United States. 
A report covering the seven successive seasons of field-work at Pueblo Bonito 
is in preparation; its publication should contribute materially to our knowledge 
of that period in which Pueblo peoples reached the very zenith of their civili¬ 
zation in pre-Spanish times. 
United States National Museum, 
Washington, D. C. 
