University of Virginia Library

VIII. INTRAMURAL BURIALS

The cemetery at Pueblo Bonito has never been found. This fact not
only adds to the mystery of the ruin but limits our knowledge of its
one-time occupants. With an estimated peak population of over 1,000,
and with one section inhabited perhaps 250 years, Pueblo Bonito
should have experienced between 4,700 and 5,400 deaths.[1] How the
bodies were disposed of, and where, continue to be tantalizing puzzles.

The only human remains thus far discovered at Pueblo Bonito had
been buried within the house cluster. The Hyde Expeditions exhumed
perhaps 20 (Pepper, 1920); Moorehead (1906, p. 34; Pepper, 1920,
pp. 210, 216) unearthed 2 or more. Sometime during the late 1890's,
while Richard Wetherill was operating his trading post nearby, Col.
D. K. B. Sellers of Albuquerque, N. Mex., and another man broke
into "a large room on the west side of Bonito" and there found part
of the "mummified" body of a woman and a quantity of turquoise,
including two turquoise birds.[2] The National Geographic Society's
expeditions disclosed 73 skeletons, complete and incomplete. Thus of
all the people who formerly dwelt there, young and old, we account for
less than 100. Except three infants, all were interred in that part of
the pueblo occupied by the Old Bonitians.

Room 320, the first of four burial chambers we encountered, was
designed for storage. It was floored with flagstones, in itself an unusual
feature. Its lone doorway, in the middle east wall, was equipped
with secondary jambs and lintel to support an inclined doorslab placed
from Room 326. Paired ventilators in both east and west walls had
been blocked, presumably when the Late Bonitians built close against
the outer west side.

Despite its original purpose, Room 320 came finally to be used as
a tomb, the sepulcher of eight women and two girls. Two of the adults
lay side by side on a single rush mat spread upon the floor at the south
end. They lay extended, on their backs, and with heads toward the
east. Traces of a feather-cloth robe, cotton fabrics, and yucca cordage
were noted in the covering of earth. Their pallet overlapped the near
edge of a fine willow screen carelessly folded upon itself in the southeast
corner. No offering was directly associated with this double interment,

but a couple of feet away, south of the east doorstep, were
several baskets and earthenware vessels (pl. 92, lower).

Of the other eight bodies, none remained intact. All had been shamefully
pulled and booted about. No. 1, comprising only the articulated
lumbar vertebrae, the pelvis and femurs, had been tossed to a sitting
position in the northwest corner with the left ilium against the west
wall and the knees touching the north. Within the pelvic arch were
the fragile bones of a fetus (field No. 1417).

The headless skeleton of a second female, No. 2, sprawled belly
down across miscellaneous bones from at least two others (pl. 91,
upper). Under her left knee and at her left side, respectively, were
remnants of two plaited ring baskets; under her right foot, the edge
of a superb mat of peeled willows (pl. 10, A). Her left hand rested
on the floor 5 inches below the head of the humerus; the detached right
hand was at the same level but out in front of the left shoulder.

In the northeast corner, jumbled with earthenware and baskets,
were six crania and a lone mandible, several vertebrae and a mutilated
torso (pl. 91, lower). Some of these lay directly upon the flagstones;
some were 2 to 5 inches above. Pack rats had nested in baskets and
pitchers and under the arched ribs of the torso, but by no stretch of
the imagination can they be charged with the disorder so apparent
here.

At time of interment, the 10 bodies had been lightly covered with
earthy debris including potsherds and pieces of adobe mortar and
flooring. But windblown sand had soon leveled all surface irregularities
and gathered into deeper, stratified accumulations in corners.
These deposits averaged little more than a foot deep through the
middle of the room when the north half of the ceiling collapsed, apparently
under the weight of masonry fallen from above. More sand
drifted in, and with it came sweepings from nearby dwellings.

In what I believe to have been a relatively short period this neighborhood
dump reached above the surviving portion of the second-story
floor. Basis for this belief is the debris of reconstruction in the pile
and the uniformity of types among the 1,250 potsherds recovered. Of
these latter, 628 came from below first-story ceiling level and include
fragments of late Chaco hatching and Houck polychrome. Sherds of
Early Pueblo ware and what we have called Chaco-San Juan were
conspicuous throughout; also, fragments of both plain and corrugatedcoil
cooking pots.

An extra right humerus in Room 320 presumably derives from
Room 329 wherein three right humeri were missing.

Room 326 was originally the family living quarters, and 320 was

one of two connecting storerooms. There had once been two doors in
the east wall but one was wholly, the other partially, closed, perhaps
when Rooms 328 and 329 were built. As Room 320 eventually was
appropriated for burials, so also was 326. It became the common
sepulcher of a man, nine women, and an infant.

Of these 11 individuals the first to die was a woman of 30 or 40,
identified in my field notes merely as Skeleton 14. (Three lots of
miscellaneous bones subsequently were recognized as parts of numbered
skeletons.) Her bed was a mat of selected, uniformly small
bulrushes. She had doubled it upon the earthen floor in the southeast
corner, in the narrow 18-inch space between the south wall and the
basal ring of ceiling prop No. 6 (pl. 93, upper). That she died in sleep
is evident from her position, comfortably on the right side with knees
drawn up and hands before the face. We observed no trace of blankets
and no burial furnishings. The body had been covered with the
material nearest at hand, dried mud mortar from razed walls, after
which the room naturally was abandoned as a vital unit of the family
residence.

Another female, No. 12 of my field notes, was next to be interred
here. The reconstruction waste carried in for burial of No. 14 was
hurriedly leveled until only 6 to 8 inches thick. Upon the uneven
surface a bulrush mat was then spread and the deceased gently laid
upon it full length with head east, left arm straight at side and right
across the chest (pl. 92, upper). More debris of reconstruction was
brought in and piled over the corpse.

In contrast to her predecessor, No. 12 was generously outfitted for
her journey to the Underworld. A turquoise pendant lay on the left
breast; a string of turquoise beads formed a 3-coil bracelet for the left
wrist (pls. 22 and 98, upper). At the right shoulder, remnants of an
oval basket tray contained one of the peculiar bone fleshers invariably
associated with such baskets locally. Assembled about the head and
shoulders were 14 earthenware vessels; at the left knee, a shattered
olla.

Of these diverse objects, the following are illustrated herein:

                 

	Plate
Turquoise pendant	22, g
Turquoise bead bracelet	22, e
Deer humerus flesher	37, d
Bowl	54, d2
Bowl	54, r
Bowl	54, j
Bowl	54, o
Bowl	54, e

               

Bowl	54, h
Bowl	55, s2
Bowl	54, h2
Bowl	54, j2
Bowl	55, u2
Pitcher	57, j
Pitcher	57, n
Olla	64, d

That No. 12, in turn, was only shallowly covered with earth is
obvious from the fact that three of the vessels at her head were
immediately overlain by an empty burial mat. Between this mat and
the southeastern corner of the room were parts of a disarticulated
skeleton we recorded as lots 11 and 13. The legs were separated from
the torso and from each other. The mandible and several ribs somehow
had come to rest at the head of the right femur. What we believed to
be the associated cranium lay 6 inches above the right foot and abutting
the south wall.

Skeleton 10, an infant, was on its back 10 inches above the floor,
head to the east and knees pressed down to the left. The skull, 5
inches from the east wall and 4 feet 3 inches from the southeast
corner, is strongly marked by Osteoporosis symmetrica, a disease of
childhood attributed to dietary deficiency. Parts of a cylindrical basket
(U.S.N.M. No. 335305) and a bifurcated basket (No. 335313, field
No. 1680) were found just above the infant.

Skeletons 8 and 9 evidence a dual burial. They lay extended on
the back, head east, 10 to 12 inches above the floor (pls. 94, left, and
95, upper). The former had her hands at the sides; the latter, left
hand on chest and right on belly. A joint offering of pottery, baskets,
etc., was grouped between the two skulls and Post 5. Waste from
building operations underlay the two bodies, as in the case of 10, 11,
and 12.

The knees of No. 8 were separated, perhaps thus to shorten the
legs and allow space for two digging sticks between feet and west wall.
A small sandstone slab lay upon the sticks and the right foot pressed
against the slab.

Each skeleton had a turquoise pendant at the throat and, in addition,
No. 8 boasted one of jet. Of greater interest, however, is the fact
that the grave furniture included a small bifurcated basket, two cylindrical
baskets, and two oval trays with companion scrapers fashioned
from deer humeri. These and other objects in the assemblage are
illustrated herein as follows:

                     

	Plate	Figure		Plate
Turquoise pendant (S.8)	22, f		Bowl	54, g
Turquoise pendant (S.9)	22, h		Bowl	55, a3
Jet pendant (S.8)		20, f	Bowl	54, g2
Bifurcated basket	87, B		Bowl	(S.9) 54, l
Deer humerus scraper (9)	37, b		Bowl	54, k
Elliptical tray	44, a		Bowl	(S.8) 54, q
Digging stick	71, k		Bowl	(S.8) 54, p
Digging stick	71, i		Pitcher	57, m
4 hematite cylinders		84	Pitcher	(S.9) 57, l
Sandstone tablet	27, d		Pitcher	(S.8) 57, e

While these dead were gathering at the south end of Room 326,
half a foot of blown sand gradually accumulated throughout the
northern two-thirds. Then neighbors dumped in some 4 inches of
household rubbish that included many potsherds; next came another
4 or 5 inches of floor sweepings mixed with debris of reconstruction.
Neither layer was uniform throughout; each was noticeably thicker
at the margins and the latest merged with a deposit of occupational
debris over the six burials mentioned.

At this point Room 326 experienced a brief period of inactivity; its
earthy fill, varying in depth from 14 to 20 inches, settled and crusted
over. Then in fairly rapid succession, or perhaps at the same time, 5
more interments were made. We found two in the middle of the room,
their scattered bones under and between decayed ceiling poles and
fragments of adobe flooring; the other three undisturbed although
only a few feet to the southeast.

Skeletons 5, 6, and 7 apparently were interred together. They more
or less paralleled each other, on the same level and about 25 inches
above the floor. No. 5 lay with skull close on the north side of Post 4;
Nos. 6 and 7, on the south side. Each lay extended on the back with
head east and arms at side; each had an offering of pottery vessels and
other utensils grouped just beyond the head (pls. 94, right, and 95,
lower).

The skull of No. 5 rested upon a stuffed-basketry "pillow" but since
this was underneath the burial mat its position may have been purely
accidental. Accompanying artifacts illustrated herein are:

       

	Plate	Figure		Plate
Basketry pillow	41, B		Bowl	54, z
"Napkin ring"		63	Bowl	54, e2
Bowl	54, t		Pitcher	57, b

Artifacts with skeleton 6 are as follows:

         

	Plate
Deer humerus scraper	37, a
Oval basket tray	44, b, c
Bowl	54, a
Bowl	55, x2

       

Bowl	54, s
Bowl	54, d
Pitcher	57, f
Pitcher	57, i

The fact that one of the earthenware bowls rested in the basket tray
opposite the flesher is doubtless just another chance happening.

No. 7 lay upon a mat of small bulrushes, neatly bound at intervals
with twined threads. Traces of a twilled rush mat were noted over
the body.

Mystery envelops the two disarticulated skeletons. They lay in the
middle of the room, only a few feet from No. 5 and on the same packed
surface. Neither occupied the orthodox position in death, facing west.
One vertebral column headed north; the other, northwest. Clearly
both bodies had been dragged from their burial mats while flesh and
ligaments still held joints together. Whatever its source, the disturbance
occurred shortly before the ceiling collapsed, since ceiling poles
were actually in contact with the bones. Any thought of accidental
death is countered by the fact one of the two craniums still rested
upon part of its burial mat. If either body was covered with earth at
time of interment the covering must have been very meager indeed.

Above these five skeletons and generally throughout the room was
some 18 inches of floor sweepings and trash; above that, about 2 feet
of like material in which windblown sand seemed dominant, and then
another layer of rotted ceiling poles. Between these latter and the
broken top of the walls the fill consisted of fallen masonry plus the
ever-present Chaco sand. That second series of poles, about 5 feet
above the floor, undoubtedly represents the second-story roof.

Thus, of the 11 individuals buried in Room 326, only one (No. 14)
appears to have died where the body was found. An infant, No. 10,
and adults 8, 9, 11, and 12 presumably were interred within a relatively
brief period since their remains in no instance were more than 12
inches above the floor. That the head and limbs of No. 11 had been
pulled from the trunk may, as a guess, be attributed to the jittery haste
with which preparations were made for a later burial. Vandalism is
ruled out in this case since three nearby skeletons on the same general
level and two others, 4 or 5 inches above them, were quite in order.

Sepulture is a fearful task the Pueblo assumes unwillingly and concludes
as speedily as possible. It is dread of what might happen rather
than callousness that motivates grave diggers at modern Zuñi, for
example, where each new grave in the crowded churchyard disturbs
half a dozen deceased relatives and one-time neighbors. Get the disagreeable
job done and get away! So uprooted bones are anxiously
scraped in on top of the latest corpse and covered with a bare foot or
two of earth.

The dead in Room 326 had each been placed on one or more sleeping
mats. A majority of these were made of carrizo or carefully selected
bulrushes, uniform in diameter, laid parallel, and bound in place by
twined threads at 4- or 5-inch intervals. That under No. 12 measured
2 feet 11 inches wide. A few comparable mats were fashioned from
dressed willows, pierced and the threads run through; still others,

from split rushes twilled over-two-under-two. Under the body of
No. 7 there had been a mat of small parallel rushes and one of twilled
rushes above it. Remnants of matting and cotton cloth over other
skeletons suggest that they were bundled or sheeted at the time of
burial.

Although there is some doubt in the case of 2, 4, and 11, it seems
likely that every interment except the first, No. 14, had been accompanied
at least by offerings of pottery. These, together with vessels
not identifiable with a given body and still others restored from fragments
in the household rubbish overlying the 11 skeletons, are shown
on plates 53, 54, 55, 57, 64, and 67.

Besides the two planting sticks with No. 8, we noted decayed remnants
of others and staves with crooked ends in association with other
skeletons. A planting stick in Hopi graves is an aid to resurrection,
since it represents the ladder into the house of Masauwii, god of death;
at Acoma the prospective traveler is offered a crooked stick as a cane
and prayer sticks are given the dead "because they are going away"
(Parsons, 1939, pp. 71, 271).

Room 329 is a one-story structure abutting the outer east wall of
326. It may have been provided with a ceiling hatchway, but the only
visible means of access is a door in the southwest corner. Equipped
with secondary jambs for support of a doorslab positioned from 329,
this opening was half closed with rude masonry when we found it.
Because the blocking was incomplete the door presumably continued
in use until interment of the first corpse in 326. In addition to constructional
separation from its neighbors, a central fireplace and a
ventilator low on the east side combine to identify this room as the
probable one-time council chamber for some secret society. Nevertheless
it, too, finally was pressed into use as a burial vault.

Seventeen women, six children, and a man were buried here at
various times. Two of the children died first, for their bodies lay on
the bare earthen floor. Over them, and throughout the room generally,
household sweepings and blown sand had been spread to an average
depth of 14 inches. In and upon this fill, with quite meaningless variations
in elevation, were the other 22 skeletons. We found them in
utmost confusion. Bones were scattered everywhere (pl. 97). Not a
single adult skeleton remained intact. All the skulls were present, but
three right humeri were missing, and, despite intervening walls and a
half-blocked door, the extra humerus we found in Room 320 may be
one of these.

In contrast, only one of the six child burials had been disturbed.
This exception, a youngster of about 12, was buried on its back facing

east, but the head had been twisted off and left face down. Under the
shoulders was part of a willow screen, and just beyond the skull were
a bowl and two pitchers that we assume were offerings with this particular
burial (pl. 96, left).

Against the middle north wall we found the body of an 8-year-old
(field No. 1880) on a bulrush mat with two pitchers and a bowl at its
head. Close by, head east and arms at side, was a third little skeleton
(field No. 1921), that of a child less than 6. It had no mat but was
accompanied by a duck-shaped pitcher, two ordinary pitchers, and a
bowl. Another child of like age (field No. 1922) had been buried in
the southwest corner, a couple of inches above the floor. It lay on its
right side with head northeast; before its partially flexed knees were
two bowls each containing a cupful of what probably had been cornmeal,
protected by an inverted bowl (pl. 53, figs. c, c′, d, d′). Another
6-year-old (field No. 1923), head south and with no grave furnishings
at all, was buried close against the northeast alcove, a structural feature
to be described elsewhere. The fragile bones of a child less than
2 (field No. 1924) lay alone on the floor in the north-central portion
of the room.

From the graves of these children, and from among the broken,
scattered remains of their elders, we recovered 47 earthenware vessels
including 25 bowls, 10 pitchers, and 6 cylindrical vases. In addition
to the two mentioned above, there is a third porringer containing
vegetable matter covered by a smaller bowl. Except two specimens,
restored from fragments that might have been carried in with the
debris of occupation spread over the interments, I believe all the pottery
was introduced as burial offerings.

Pieces of rush and willow mats were noted here and there, but in
only two instances, the child skeletons cited above, were those mats
actually occupied at the time of exhumation. Remnants of a fairly
large cotton fabric (U.S.N.M. No. 335349) were traceable beneath
portions of two adjacent skeletons in the north half of the room.

A pair of shell pendants (No. 335706) was recovered beside one
child's body (field No. 1922). With another we found the only turquoise
pendant (U.S.N.M. No. 335748) seen in Room 329—one of
good color but with an angular face and no matrix backing. From
the general burial level we gleaned four fragments of shell bracelets,
a few olivella beads, one of jet, and perhaps a handful of discoidal
shell and stone beads. If not chance losses gathered up with household
sweepings and tossed out, these are truly scant adornment for 24
Bonitian dead.

Plate 94

Skeletons 8 (right) and 9, Room 326, with grave furnishings that
included pottery, basketry, and agricultural tools.

(Photographs by O. C. Havens, 1924.)

Skeletons 5 (left) and 6, Room 326, were accompanied by
earthenware vessels, baskets, and other objects.

Plate 95

Upper: Skeletons 8 (front) and 9, Room 326, rested on a layer of constructional waste and
blown sand.

Lower: Skeletons 5 (front) and 6, Room 326, had been interred on a second burial level,
about 25 inches above the floor.

(Photographs by O. C. Havens, 1924.)

Plate 96

The head of Burial 12, Room 329, an adolescent girl, had been
twisted off and left face down.

(Photographs by O. C. Havens, 1924.)

Detached skulls lay among earthenware vessels and baskets in the
northeast corner of Room 320.

Plate 97

Upper: Overturned burials in the southwest corner of Room 329.

Lower: Parts of three disarticulated skeletons, northwest quarter of Room 329.

(Photographs by O. C. Havens, 1924.)

The duck effigy of pale green turquoise illustrated as figure 92
comes from Room 329, but weight and off-center balance preclude the
possibility of its having been worn as an ornament.

Room 330 has much in common with 329. It also abuts Room 326
on the east and its only entrance was a ceiling hatchway. A slab-lined,
adobe-rimmed fireplace, a ventilator through the middle east wall at
floor level, and absence of a lateral door further mark 330 as another
chamber designed for esoteric rites. And it, too, in the course of time,
came to be set aside for burial purposes.

Twenty-three individuals were inhumed here—13 men, 4 women,
and 6 children. (My field notes include a Skeleton 24, but the miscellaneous
bones recorded as Lot 1 later were recognized as belonging
to various skeletons.) Two of the men, perhaps members of the secret
society that met here, were first to be interred. Both were in their late
twenties at time of death; both were buried in cramped quarters under
the floor (pl. 93, lower).

The skeleton of a child less than 6 (No. 21) lay flexed on the floor
in the northwest corner, in a bin formed by two low adobe walls. Since
these were only 6 inches high and were directly overlain by a covering
of sticks, it seems likely the bin was constructed purposely to enclose
the little body.

Skeleton 10, the remains of a warrior in his prime, lay on his back
in the middle of the room, head east, heels together and knees outspread
(pl. 98, lower). On the floor between his knees 28 finely
chipped arrowheads had been arranged to form a triangle; under his
right hip lay a bundle of reed-shafted arrows. Both lots are described
at greater length on pages 254-255. An accompanying bowl probably
contained food for the long, last journey. Here, truly, was an honored
defender of the village! Under the right knee of another, but disarticulated,
skeleton we found eight arrowheads (pl. 74, A).

We do not know whether the child in the northwest corner, the
warrior, or No. 22, an arthritic, was first to be interred above floor
level. But we do know that first inhumation was scantily covered with
occupational debris. Above this lay some 16 inches of sand containing
floor sweepings and a few potsherds. The total accumulation averaged
only 18 inches thick but in it, within a room less than 13 feet square,
21 human bodies had been buried. Resting directly upon the burial
layer and flattened against the walls were the broken timbers and
other components of the collapsed ceiling.

Of the 21 interments above floor level only 4 had escaped mutilation.
The others had been callously pulled and kicked about before the roof
fell (pl. 99).

Nineteen food bowls, 19 pitchers, 1 "duck" pitcher, 1 cup-size canteen,
6 cylindrical vases, 1 broad-handled ladle (fig. a, pl. 62), and
fragments of two ordinary ladles were collected from Room 330 and
its two subfloor graves. As in 329, several small bowls contained what
probably was ground meal, covered by smaller, inverted bowls. Although
the total averages practically 2 vessels per burial, 21 were
either crushed by trampling feet or broken elsewhere and dumped in
with kitchen rubbish. The latter could happen, as witness a restored
bowl, one sherd of which came from Room 329, next on the north.
Fragments of a 6-inch, half-gourd type dipper were recovered also
from Rooms 325 and 327. Here, again, is proof Bonitian housewives
dumped their daily sweepings in the place that seemed most convenient
at the moment.

The jet rings illustrated on plate 22, figures a, b, lay in loose earth
near an incomplete male skeleton (No. 6) in the southeast corner of
the room; figure c lay beside the skull of a youth (Skeleton 13) 15 to
18 years of age. But we have no means of knowing whether the rings
actually were buried with these two bodies. An unpolished disk of
lignite, 3 inches in diameter by one-fourth inch thick, was found beside
Skeleton 5. In addition to these treasures, we recovered a few discoidal
turquoise beads in Room 330 and squared tesserae from mosaics,
but not a single turquoise pendant.

A shell necklace and paired eardrops (U.S.N.M. Nos. 336033336034)
had been left on the chest of Skeleton 23, a 25- to 28-year-old
male interred below floor level. Paired pendants or eardrops were
found near Skeleton 1, a child, and a pair of Haliotis disks 2½ inches
in diameter lay beside Skeleton 22, another male. These and other ornaments
from Room 330 are described and figured in chapter III.

Near Skeleton 2, that of a child 8 to 10 years old, was the fragment
of what looked like a cedar-bark potrest. Remnants of some sort of
fiber mat were noted under a detached skull, No. 3; Skeleton 16, an
adolescent male, rested on a bulrush mat spread upon the child's tomb
in the northwest corner. Scraps of rush and cedar-bark (?) matting,
cotton fabrics, baskets, and at least two willow mats were observed
among the disordered remains. Fortunately, the one basket we were
successful in saving is the painted example described on page 306.

Seventeen dead ruthlessly overturned! By whom and for what
reason?

If we add the Room 330 figures to those from Rooms 320, 326, and
329, we learn that of 68 interments 46, or 67.6 percent, had been
violated. One of the 46, No. 11 in Room 326, might have been the

victim of a later burial party but it is the only one to which that possible
explanation would apply. Of the other 45 bodies most had been
dragged from their burial mats before decomposition was complete.
Articulated limbs, a torso here and there, skulls with part of the cervical
vertebrae attached, all provide seemingly convincing evidence the
general confusion in these four rooms was caused by irreverent hands.
Lack of turquoise ornaments and, indeed, the paucity of ornaments of
any kind, suggest a motivating reason for the vandalism.

As representatives of Bonito's prehistoric population these 68 skeletons
contribute very little to knowledge. One gathers nothing statistically
from them. They are too few. Their physical differences are
not of racial import. Nineteen are of children, sex undetermined.
Thirteen are males, and two others probably male. Thirty-two, possibly
33, are female.

If we had several hundred skeletons for examination and this same
preponderance of females held true the figures would have significance.
In his study of Pecos skeletons, for example, Hooton (1930) counted
140.8 males per hundred females. Few of either sex survived age 55.
Arthritis was prevalent among Pecos adults; Osteoporosis symmetrica
occurred frequently in children. Hooton estimates nearly 50,000 deaths
during the 10 centuries Pecos was inhabited.

These dead were buried everywhere about Pecos—"under the floors,
under the walls, in the plaza, and in the terraces"—but most often in
the rubbish heaps. Flexed or partially flexed burials predominated in
the early periods of occupation; extended burials, in the later periods.

In contrast, the prescribed burial position at Pueblo Bonito appears
to have been on the back, full length and head east. Of the 22 undisturbed
skeletons in the Society's four burial rooms, at least 15 occupied
this position. One other, the 12-year-old child in Room 329, had
been interred with head to the west. My notes on three younger
children here are unfortunately incomplete but one of them was buried
with head south.

Only 3 of the 22 were flexed and then but partially. One of these is
the young woman who died on her sleeping mat in the southeast corner
of Room 326. The fact that at least 17 of our undisturbed skeletons
faced west in death suggests the probability of a local taboo against
doing so in life. The Hopi give no thought to bed orientation but at
Zuñi, Acoma, and Laguna, among others, sleeping with head to the
east would be fatal since it is the recognized position for burial (Parsons,
1939, p. 99).

For a people habitually barefoot, size of foot is no criterion of
stature or robustness but, merely as an item of passing interest, we
may note that a right footprint in the adobe floor of Room 244 measures
8½ inches long by 3¾ inches across the ball. A like print on an
earlier pavement, 38 inches below latest floor level in Room 288, is
reproduced on plate 100, upper.

Infant burials.—In the debris of occupation filling Room 287, a
late nondescript structure on the east side of the East Court, and about
4 feet above the floor, we encountered the skeleton of a small child
(field No. 923).

An oval fireplace, 25 inches long by 14 inches wide and 9 inches
deep, was situated at the base of the northeast wall in Room 290, a
late third-type dwelling partly overhanging Kiva L. In that fireplace,
face down with head to the northwest and lower legs doubled back
over the thighs, lay the skeleton of a child less than a year old (pl.
100, lower). Wood ashes surrounded the remains and covered them to
floor level. The fact that this covering was later burned proves the
place continued in use as the family hearth, at least for a time.

The body of a very young infant (field No. 1202) in a 14 by 9 by
5-inch deep excavation against the south wall of Room 306 had been
covered with sticks and floored over. Three macaws likewise had been
buried in holes dug in the adobe floor of this Old Bonitian house.

Rooms 308 and 309 are of second-type stonework and were built
against the outer south wall of 306-307, of first-type construction.
Special features suggest that all four, and especially Room 309, were
set aside for ceremonial rites of some sort.

A block of plastered masonry, with a cruder, unplastered extension,
screens off the southwest corner of Room 309 and thus forms a triangular
alcove whose floor is 2 inches above that of the room proper.
On this raised portion behind the screen lay the remains of a macaw
and a very small child (field No. 1258). The character of its debrisof-occupation
fill identifies Room 309, like 307, next on the north, as
a Late Bonitian dump.

Pepper (1920, pp. 210, 264) reports a child's skull in Room 53 and
the skeleton of a child beneath the floor of Room 79.

Intramural burial of stillborn infants and very small children is an
old Anasazi custom and one still practiced in several Pueblo villages
(Parsons, 1939, p. 71).

Miscellaneous human remains.—Single teeth were found in Rooms
226 and 227-I, and in Kiva L; part of a femur was found in Kiva V
and an adolescent pelvis was unearthed during trenching operations in

the southeast quarter of the West Court. From the dominantly Late
Bonitian rubbish in Old Bonitian Room 325, and about 3 feet above
the floor, we recovered a lone cranium (field No. 1874).

Pepper (1920, p. 223) noted fragments of a skull, mandible, and
other bones, many of them charred, in the debris fill of Room 61, and
from Room 80 fragments of burned human bones that appear to have
fallen from an upper story (ibid., p. 267).

HYDE EXPEDITION BURIAL ROOMS

Pepper (1909, 1920) has recounted his observations in burial rooms
32 and 33, two ground-floor, Old Bonitian structures in the crowded
northwest section of the pueblo. His published field notes are often
confusing and sometimes contradictory, but a little winnowing and
regrouping of the data presented gives what seems to be a fairly
understandable picture of conditions in the two chambers.

Room 32 has three doors connecting, in turn, with Rooms 53 on the
north, 33 on the west, and 28 on the south. The three sills are at the
same general level, about a foot above the floor; the ceiling beams,
4 feet higher (Pepper, 1920, p. 163). When Pepper forced an entrance
through the sealed south door he encountered "a wall of drifted sand"
(ibid., p. 129). This had filtered in on the east side until it reached
nearly to the ceiling; opposite, the deposit was about 3 feet deep, to
judge from the discoloration on the north jamb of the west door (ibid.,
p. 141, fig. 52).

Troweling through this sand accumulation, Pepper came upon 33
pieces of pottery, a metate, at least one basket, and various lesser
objects. For the most part these were distributed without plan and
from a few inches to as much as 2 feet above the floor. Some vessels
stood upright; others lay on the side or even bottom up. Three rested
on the floor between the south door and the southwest corner. An
appreciable number, however, are reported from doorsill level, that is,
approximately 12 inches above the floor. At this height and near the
south wall were two nested bowls and, a few inches away, three more,
likewise nested.

Leaning against the wall in the northwest corner were two or three
bundles of arrows (including 81 with chipped points attached), an
elk-antler club, and about 375 ceremonial staves. Of these latter the
longest reported measured 3 feet 8¾ inches. Since the sand at this
point was not over 3 feet 9 inches deep (lintel height of the west door)
and since some of the staves "protruded over a foot above the surface"

(ibid., p. 129), it is patent that from 8 to 12 inches of sand had gathered
here before the staves, arrows, and war club were stored.

Six inches above the west doorsill Pepper found portions of a human
skeleton "mixed with fragments of wooden implements and other
objects" (ibid., p. 134). It is a fact pertinent to our study that 18
inches of sand should have sifted down into this dark interior room
before the burial occurred. And it is also of interest to note that, as it
accumulated, this sand gradually covered all but one of the 33 pottery
vessels left here from time to time, presumably for safekeeping. Remnants
of a woven garment trailed from the incomplete skeleton through
the west door.

Room 33 adjoins 32 on the west and is connected with it by an open
door. On the east side of that door sand had collected to a depth of
approximately 3 feet. In Room 33 the accumulation was somewhat
less (ibid., p. 163), perhaps 30 inches. Here, in a space but little more
than 6 feet square, in approximately 100 cubic feet of sand, 12 dead
had been interred.

Not many years after burial, the 12 bodies were dragged from their
graves. When Pepper happened upon them none was intact although
he describes three as partly articulated (Pepper, 1909, pp. 210-221).
Only four skulls were in position; only three mandibles are mentioned
as accompanying the skull. Beneath the floor, however, were two
additional skeletons, undisturbed and still lavishly bedecked with
personal ornaments. They lay full length on the back, apparently, and
head to the north.

With Skeleton 13 were 10 turquoise pendants and 5,890 beads.
There were 698 pendants and over 9,000 turquoise beads with Skeleton
14 and, in addition, numerous tesserae, shell ornaments, and other
objects. These two subfloor burials, more than all others combined,
have since come to symbolize the wealth of Pueblo Bonito.

But turquoise treasure was also found above floor level in Room 33.
Many beads and pendants were recovered from the narrow space
behind beam-supporting posts in three corners. From these same
cramped corners Pepper removed eight remarkable wooden flageolets
and 22 of the 39 ceremonial staves he reports. A diversity of objects,
including 27 earthenware vessels, came from the middle of the room
but "it was impossible to determine with which skeletons the various
pieces had been buried" (ibid., p. 210).

Pepper (ibid., pp. 209-210) attributes this disorder to rainwater
flooding through the open east door and swirling about. The evidence,
it seems to me, points rather to another hostile raiding party. This,

despite the 503 turquoise pendants "found with the bodies" (p. 240)
above the plank floor. Driven by haste, grave robbers conceivably
might have overlooked these jewels, but it requires an even greater
stretch of the imagination to believe that rainwater, draining from one
or more neighboring rooftops, could have poured into Room 33 with
such force as to dislodge, in succession, 12 human bodies buried in a
foot or two of sand. Roof drainage there was, of course, but the
amount at any one time sufficed merely to stratify the sand grains as
water collected momentarily in depressions favorably situated. Such,
at least, was our interpretation of the evidence in rooms we cleared.
Whatever its total volume, the rainwater percolating through the sand
in Room 33 did not cause decay of all the fabrics, wooden flageolets,
mosaic-encrusted baskets, and other perishable objects deposited there.

Room 53 is "one of the two rooms explored by the Moorehead
party" in the spring of 1897 (Pepper, 1920, p. 210). A few weeks
later, when Pepper arrived for his first full season at Pueblo Bonito,
he found a headless skeleton at the south end of Room 53 and, near
the middle east wall, the skull of a child. These may represent two
burials or one only. No data are given as to depth of interment.
Because a choice turquoise necklace lay near the child's skull, it is
possible that this room had not been disturbed prior to the year mentioned.
Because fragments of feather-cord blankets and the endboards
of two cradles are listed among the objects recovered, it is assumed
the inflow of rainwater had caused little, if any, damage in this
instance.

Room 56, adjoining 53 on the west, was also excavated before
Pepper's return. Under the floor were two graves, separated by a
masonry wall that is identified as part of an older building. One grave
was 2 feet deep and the other, 3. Each was long enough to contain an
extended adult body. The south grave, floored with sticks, was walled,
and possibly covered, with hewn boards (Pepper, 1920, pp. 216-217).
It was in one of these two vaults, no doubt, that Moorehead (1906,
p. 34) found "a splendidly preserved skeleton of a young woman
wrapped in a large feather robe."

In his description of the room, Pepper mentions scattered human
bones in the northeastern and northwestern corners and intimates that
more than two burials had been exhumed.

From Pepper's own description of conditions in these four rooms
it seems clear that the disorder could have been caused by human
agency only and not natural forces. His subfloor burials, like ours,

were intact while most of those above had been disturbed. That some
rainwater trickled in from time to time is not to be questioned but that
it ever attained the volume or force to wrest human heads, arms, and
legs from their trunks is simply incredible.

The situation here, as in 320, 326, 329, and 330, is more readily and
more logically explained, in my opinion, as the work of plunderers.
If the Late Bonitians had already vacated their three-quarters of the
pueblo, the defensive power of the remainder would have been proportionately
weakened. Under such circumstances, a relatively small band
of raiders, striking with speed and ruthlessness, could so paralyze the
broken community that its store of maize, its womenfolk, and even the
jewels on its shallowly buried dead might be seized at little risk.

Because these eight burial rooms all lie in the oldest section of the
village we may assume their final occupants were all Old Bonitians.
Because the graves were shallow and crowded it is possible, but by no
means certain, all were filled within a relatively short period. That
this period came late in the history of Pueblo Bonito is proven by the
presence of late-type pottery among the grave furniture. Hence my
conviction that these dead represent an Old Bonitian remnant that
clung to its ancestral home after the Late Bonitians had migrated.
Because that remnant was unable to marshal the necessary defensive
strength, it paid the customary price to its enemies.

But even though this interpretation be the correct one, we are still
left with the query that opened this chapter: Where did the Bonitians
bury their 5,000 dead? The local cemetery is yet to be discovered. If
our Late Bonitians adopted the burial practices of their hosts, as seems
likely, the puzzle is all the greater. For, as I have elsewhere explained,
the Old Bonitians were a Pueblo II people living in a Pueblo III age.
One would naturally expect them to follow the recognized customs of
their cultural level, including burial in trash piles near the dwellings.
But they did not. Our trench through the West Court exposed a
previously undisturbed portion of the old village dump. We found no
burial there and none in cross sectioning the west refuse mound, composed
of both Old and Late Bonitian rubbish.

Hewett (1921, p. 11) supposed the area about Casa Rinconada, on
the south side of the canyon, to be the common burial ground for
Chettro Kettle, Pueblo Bonito, and Pueblo del Arroyo, although a
quarter century earlier Pepper had ascertained that burials occurring
there belonged to nearby house groups (Pepper, 1920, p. 376). Our
own study of small-house sites throughout the Chaco district, sites
varying in age from B.M. III to P. III, show that burials were frequently,

Plate 98

Upper: A necklace of turquoise beads formed a bracelet for the left wrist of Burial 12,
Room 326.

Lower: Skeleton No. 10, Room 330, lay upon a bundle of arrows, with a burial offering of
arrowheads and a food bowl below his outspread knees.

(Photographs by O. C. Havens, 1924.)

Plate 99

Upper: A confusion of human bones, earthenware vessels, stone artifacts, and debris of
reconstruction appeared in the southeast corner of Room 330.

Lower: The wild disarray in the northwest corner of Room 330 could have been caused
only by prehistoric grave robbers.

(Photographs by O. C. Havens, 1924.)

Plate 100

Upper: A footprint in an adobe pavement 38 inches below the floor of Room 228. (Photograph
by O. C. Havens, 1924.)

Lower: The skeleton of an infant ried in the fireplace of Room 290. (Photograph by
Neil M. Judd, 1923.)

but not exclusively, made in the associated refuse heaps. When
we come to the major villages, however, a new custom presents itself,
isolation and concealment of the community burial ground.

What is true in Chaco Canyon is equally true elsewhere throughout
the Anasazi area. From Mesa Verde to Segi Canyon and back again
no cemetery has yet been disclosed in connection with a major Pueblo
III ruin. A few burials, yes, but not the graveyard. At Pueblo Bonito,
however, this recognized P. III trait reflects a practice established by
the original P. II settlement. The Late Bonitians were merely following
local custom when they disposed of their dead.

If failure to locate the Pueblo Bonito cemetery has bothered me
more than my predecessors it is because I have probably given more
thought to the matter. Pepper had searched the two associated refuse
mounds; his excavations had also proved that subfloor interment was
not widely practiced here. Two other possibilities remained for consideration:
A burial ground somewhat removed from the village and
cremation.

Mrs. John Wetherill once related for me a Kayenta Navaho explanation
that accounts both for the lack of a cemetery at Pueblo Bonito
and the paucity of trees on the mesas above. The Bonitians cremated
their dead, said these western Navaho who had never been in Chaco
Canyon, and that is why there are very few junipers and pinyons
remaining in the vicinity. Careful search, however, failed to disclose
the burned spots and the fragments of calcined bones that would lend
substance to this explanation.

A negative return here reflects the findings of archeologists, namely,
that cremation was rarely, if ever, practiced by the Anasazis. The
numerous cremated burials at Hawikuh are those of southern Indians
who came to work for the Zuñi in pre-Spanish times (Hodge, 1921).

Inasmuch as some 3 feet of sand and silt had settled over the valley
floor since abandonment of Pueblo Bonito, it seemed desirable at least
to glance beneath this overburden. A half dozen test pits all proved
barren. Therefore, unless we missed the cemetery completely, it lies
more than a quarter mile from the ruin. The greedy arroyo, whose
banks we examined after each summer rain, disclosed nothing of
promise. We observed nothing to suggest the likelihood of burials in
the talus at the base of the north cliff. Thus, with every reasonable
possibility exhausted, we could only leave to the future the mystery
of the missing cemetery.

Our Chaco Canyon visitors, however, were not so easily discouraged.
My admission of defeat was to them a challenge. None passed the

opportunity. If their proffered solutions sometimes seemed a bit ludicrous
I had only to remember my own had failed. One theorist, for
example, had the dead of Pueblo Bonito floating down Chaco wash,
one by one, on log rafts. Here again, as in the Navaho story, we have
a single explanation that accounts both for our depleted forests and
absence of a communal burial graveyard. Utterly innocent of the
birch-bark canoe that carried Hiawatha on his final journey, these individual
rafts floated westward down the Chaco and into the San Juan;
thence, into the Colorado and Gulf of California. The alluvial fan at
the mouth of the Rio Colorado is certainly one place I never thought
to look for Bonitian burials.