Aztec Ruins Administrative History

1916: EXPLORATORY SEASON
(continued)

To get excavations under way, Morris assigned one group of shovelers and tenders the task of using hand tools to clear the single row of low cobblestone rooms along the south side of the pueblo. Picks, shovels, and screens were the primary instruments, but occasionally close work required more ingenuity. For example, Morris resorted to the blast pipe off his blacksmith forge to remove fine soil from around delicate objects (see Figure 3.4).

Figure 3.4. Workers removing fine fill dirt by means of a forge bellows.
(Courtesy American Museum of Natural History).

Although the southern contiguous dwellings were discernible and posed no serious difficulties for the crew, they did produce a few surprises for the dig director. The maximum height of walls was less than eight feet ranging down to a one-foot foundation. Other than several stone-lined bins and fire hearths, floor features were absent. Occasional poles and copious amounts of adobe mud were incorporated into partitioning walls. Although a Mesa Verde mug was taken from Room 1, refuse in the fill struck Morris as generally Chacoan. He based this opinion primarily, if not totally, on diagnostic pottery decorated in mineral pigment and a single fragmentary ceramic effigy figure from Room 5. Figurines of this sort were a unique specialization of Chaco potters. Morris had expected the south unit to represent Mesa Verdian tenancy. Moreover, the South Wing structures sat on what appeared to be several feet of dispersed refuse containing Chacoan potsherds. In neglecting to extend excavations down to sterile ground, Morris missed a possible opportunity to determine the extent and kind of earlier utilization of that spot. Although it was not yet recognized as such, some of the recovered pottery (termed by Morris as "archaic") was typically Basketmaker III or Pueblo I in time. This implied an occupation predating the main structure, if not underlying the row of cobblestone rooms at least in the immediate vicinity.

Diggers found three small, circular, subterranean chambers believed to be clan ceremonial rooms, or kivas, in the courtyard just to the north of the cobblestone units. Morris kept no record of the dimensions of these structures and only limited notes about the precise variety of ceramics or other goods retrieved from them. [11]

Kiva A was just inside where the former outer village wall would have been along the southeastern perimeter. Surviving notes reveal that one gallon of pieces of black-on-white pottery and two quarts of grey "coil ware" were recovered during the clearing of this feature. All Anasazi pottery was constructed by a coil method, but Morris used the phrase "coil ware" to denote the ubiquitous grey utility pottery. Coils on the most common cook pots were left unobliterated but crimped to facilitate handling and to better retain heat. Coils on decorated wares were smoothed. Without fuller descriptions, it is impossible to determine regional derivations of these particular earthenwares because all three Anasazi branches made black-on-white and grey wares. Since black-on-red ceramics were not part of the repertories of either Chaco or Mesa Verde potters, a handful of such potsherds likely were remains of trade goods. Apparently in Kiva A, Morris observed no interior architectural features usually present in kivas. This suggests that it might have been a family pithouse in use some time prior to the erection of the final great house rather than being a coeval ceremonial chamber. In 1916, pithouses had not been found or studied in the eastern San Juan Basin.

When discovered, neighboring Kiva B was filled with naturally deposited earth and fallen roof and wall rubble. Its surface depression subsequently had become a dump ground for household sweepings and trash. Excavation exposed an encircling banquette upon which pilasters were raised to support roof timbers. The structure lacked a southern recess, a shank projection characteristic of Mesa Verde kivas, and a sipapu, or symbolic entrance to the nether world. Burials of an infant and a juvenile were among discarded goods littering the floor. Surviving field notes do not specify the kind of associated grave furnishings, if any.

Morris arbitrarily elected to roof Kiva B. For unclear reasons, he used a partially intact, cribbed-log kiva roof at Peabody House (now Square Tower House) in Mesa Verde as a model. [12] He justified the reconstruction to Nelson as being less costly than resetting the kiva's cobblestone walls in cement to withstand exposure. Up until 1984, the replaced flat roof, with its central hatchway at ground level, was noticeable in the southeast court (see Figure 3.5). However, reroofing this relatively minor construction proved to be a mistake. Because of the slope of the terrain and the kiva's situation in the lowest part of the site, underground water percolated into it. The roof prevented natural evaporation, making eventual backfilling of the structure the only possible solution for its preservation. It lies hidden beneath a thick layer of earth along a service road exiting from the southeast corner of the house compound.

Figure 3.5. Roofed Kiva B, 1916. (Courtesy American Museum of Natural History).

The third kiva exposed in 1916 appeared to have been built within some larger circular masonry unit. It lacked usual kiva elements, except for a firepit and a ventilator tunnel beneath a partial banquette, which did not connect with a shaft to the ground surface. Morris did not determine the cultural affiliation of Kiva C. Modern interpretation suggests it was a pithouse, rather than a kiva, that probably predated the masonry complex to its north side. Kiva C is no longer visible because it has been covered by an extension of the earthen courtyard.