University of Virginia Library

III. Appendix III

THE REFUSE DUMP OF MOUND 50

By Florence M. Hawley

Description and Technique

The refuse heap of Mound 50 measured on the present surface
roughly sixty by one hundred feet (Fig. 7); but its original extent
was probably somewhat larger, for the edges were lost under the
blanket of drift deposited since prehistoric times. The mound was
marked off into six foot squares, designated from north to south as
Trenches and from east to west as Sections. Excavation began on the
north end, Section I, in nine trenches, each square being worked by two
students at a time. The students supervised the excavation in six inch
absolute levels, designated by numbers running from the bottom upward
and measured by transit from a base line laid at the bottom of
the northern edge of Section I, where a preliminary trench was cut.
The actual digging was done mostly by Navajo laborers, but the students
removed the shards from the soil as it was shoveled up or as they
slowly shoveled it up themselves. Screens were not used because it was
thought that in the large amount of soil to be removed from each square
the small number of shards probably missed by the quicker technique
of picking over the material would not be significant. It was found to
be more difficult to teach the students to be practical than to be careful;
they were inclined to section the dump, inch by inch, with trowels!

The shards collected were sacked and the sacks marked with the
Section, Trench, Level, date and initials of the worker. Most levels
required several shifts of work, morning and afternoon, and more than
one bag for the shards. The shards were brought to the laboratory tent
at the end of each shift, and there they were washed and classified by
the laboratory classes.

After the shards had been classified, the classification checked, and
percentages computed, these percentages were entered on large charts
marked into Sections, Trenches, and Levels, representing the dump, as
well as on individual blanks mimeographed for the purpose. The study
of associations of types of pottery by Section and Level indicated that
the complexes for each period were consistent except for the overlapping
of some types from period to period, as might be expected in
any continuously occupied site. In the Chetro Ketl dump, holding over
of types was marked; there was never a strict demarkation of period by
presence or absence of certain types but only by preponderance of certain
types. Types first made in small percentages in one period grew
to be the most popular and characteristic types of the next period and

Figure 7
Graphs of Refuse Mound

fell to small percentages again as they died out in the succeeding
period. Hence, periods and their strata can not be identified by one
pottery type any more than a skeleton may be classified racially on
one characteristic; a study of the predominating characteristics, however,
will mark off strata by period, and the lines of these strata were
drawn onto the charts for each section. Comparison of the outlines
of the topography of the strata for each period through all the sections
provided an outline of the shape and slopes of the refuse mounds of
the three period represented, as far as they were uncovered. No indication
of division of the dump by strata was apparent in the trench
profiles.

Extent of Dump Investigation

The nine trenches were carried to such a depth that no more
shards or charcoal were found at the bottom through three Sections, or
eighteen feet, from north to south. At that point it was apparent that
there would not be time to proceed much farther into the dump during
the season, so work was concentrated on Trenches 2, 4 and 6, and all
others in Section 4 were abandoned. In the four sections the outline
and slope of the various strata of the three periods, Basket Maker III,
Pueblo I, and Pueblo II, can be drawn from the shard data. No datable
charcoal was found in the dump, hence the dates for the strata must be
inferential, from the dates on the house structures.

Results and Conclusions

The dump is made up of the refuse from the superimposed villages
of Mound 50 and probably from some adjacent pit houses, the periods
of Basket Maker III, Pueblo I, and Pueblo II, being represented. Constant
occupation of the site and use of the dump is indicated by the
merging of the periods one into the other and by the lack of period
profiles. Because of this merging, the outlines of the dump for each
period can be no more than approximate, but as such they give the
general height, shape, and slope, and consequently, the direction of
growth. It is possible that refuse from Mound 51, just to the east of
the dump, is likewise represented in the refuse shards. Shards in
Mound 51 rooms indicated the site to be Pueblo II.

Refuse of Basket Maker III.

The only pure deposit of Basket Maker III material is in the southeast
corner of the area excavated, in Trenches 7 and 8, Section III.
(Fig. 7). The shards are Lino Gray (Hargrave[1] and La Plata Black

on White (Gladwin).[2] The small mound of this material suggests one
or more pit houses in the near vicinity and perhaps covered by the later
deposits.

In the northeast corner of the excavated area the proportions of
Lino Gray and of La Plata Black on White are high enough to suggest
that at least some of this debris may be of Basket Maker III but later
mixed by surface wash with material from Pueblo I. Beneath Trenches
8 and 9 in Section I were found sandstone slabs so set into the ground
that their identification as the outline of one or more pit houses was
possible.

Experimental attempts at a colored ware appear to be indicated
in sporadic shards of an orange-red on dull light orange, shards which
may possibly be merely over-fired Black on White but which on close
examination shows such uniformity as to suggest intentional use of the
colors as they stand at present.

Refuse Mound of Pueblo I.

Pueblo I is represented here by a pottery complex in which Lino
Gray and Red Mesa Black on White (Gladwin)[3] rank highest in proportion,
with Escavada Black on White (Hawley)[4] and Exuberant
Corrugated (Roberts)[5] as the next two highest, and Gallup Black on
White (Hawley)[6] as a low percentage. The first three are predominant
in Pueblo I; the latter two, predominant in Pueblo II and into the early
part of Pueblo III, were evidently being made for the first time. The
designs of the La Plata Black on White are found to be carried over,
in part, to Red Mesa and to the Escavada Black on White, and the
designs of the Escavada are found to be carried over, in part, to
the Gallup Black and White. In so far as a type piece of pottery
carries the designs chiefly characteristic of a preceding or of
a succeeding period, it is probable that that piece was made earlier or
later within the period to which it is assigned by its most important
characteristics, but this observation cannot be used as a strict criterion
of age or of period, although, with other indications, it may aid in such
time identification.

Red Mesa Black on White was originally marked by Gladwin as
in the Mancos Mesa phase of Pueblo II, and it was identified with the

Chaco Transitional Black on White (Roberts)[7] . The Chaco Transitional
has now been broken up into the Red Mesa Black on White of
Pueblo I and of early Pueblo II, and the Escavada Black on White of
late Pueblo I and of Pueblo II. The former stands close to the Kiatuthlanna
Black on White (Gladwin)[8] in typology, with thin walls, polished
slip, and designs which indicate development from the La Plata
Black on White, while the latter is distinguished by walls which average
slightly thicker, by an unpolished slip, and by heavier designs
which carry over some of the elements of Pueblo I but with the thicker
lines of Pueblo II. The stratigraphy and associated trade shards of
Mound 50 dump indicate that while Red Mesa lasted into Pueblo II,
it was paramount in Pueblo I, in the Chaco, while the Escavada was
second, but the Escavada was more popular than Red Mesa in early
Pueblo II. The Escavada is more of a borderline transitional type then
the Red Mesa, although both ran from one period into the other.

It should be noted, also, that the shards designated as Lino Gray
might equally well be shards from the lower portion of a Kana-a Gray
(Hargrave) vessel typical of Pueblo I. This situation has been kept
in mind throughout the study. Moreover, since the so-called Lino Gray
has been found in appreciable amounts all through the dump, in every
stratum, it is possible that either the true Lino Gray or the neck-banded
Kana-a Gray[9] were made through Pueblo II at this site, but
another consideration must accompany such a question. Since the Red
Mesa Black on White and the La Plata Black on White are likewise
found scattered throughout the dump in minor percentages, we must
either postulate considerable holding over of these styles into later
periods or considerable mixing of the dump material through such
agents as gophers or the washing of the steep sides of the earlier
deposits and the consequent mixing of shards from these deposits with
those of the later period. The latter would seem the more reasonable
explanation. The steepness of the mound of Pueblo I and the large
association of Basket Maker III shards in this mound in the northeastern
corner, over the pithouses (?), would certainly make for considerable
mixing, during the wash of heavy rains, of Pueblo I and Basket
Maker III shards with those being deposited during Pueblo II just
to the west of the steep peak of the earlier mound. (Fig. 7.)

Trade relations of this period are indicated by scattered shards of
Deadman's Black on Red (Colton),[10] by the unnamed thin walled Pueblo
I ancestor of the red ware with black burnished interior found in the
Upper Gila and Mogollon districts, by a shard which was identified by

Haury[11] as belonging with those from the White Mound site on the
Arizona Puerco, dating about 700 A. D., by Lino Black on Gray (Hargrave)[12]
and Kana-a Black on White (Hargrave)[13] from the Flagstaff
district, by the gray with black smudged interior found by Roberts
in the Stollsteimer Mesa ruins of the Piedra district.[14]

One small bowl of peculiar black on red ware of Pueblo I design
and finish was taken from a Pueblo I grave, and a number of shards of
similar type were found in the dump. This vessel is of gray paste,
fairly coarse in texture, and is slipped on outside and inside with a dull
red which is only bright enough in color to indicate that the shade was
not due to over-firing. The color is not of the ruddy shade on later
bowls of the various types of black on red known in the Southwest,
however, and suggests that the vessel represents an early experiment
with red slip by a people who were more accustomed to making black
on white vessels. The bowl was examined by J. O. Brew of the Peabody
Museum, who has kindly allowed his comments to be quoted.

"At first glance in the interior it suggests in color possible relationship
with the early black on white which Morris finds so prevalent
in the La Plata region and of which I find a few shards on Alkali
Ridge. However, the paste and the exterior color are sufficiently different
from any of my Alkali stuff at least to prohibit classing the two
together, even aside from the design. The panelled band of the design
with the parallel lines division, which is characteristic of the later
developmental Pueblo Black on White on Alkali, does not occur in the
red on orange. Such a piece found on Alkali I should expect to be associated
with very early type kivas and small houses of wattle and daub
or one and two room coursed masonry. Such an attempt at placing the
piece is based entirely on the design as that is the only thing that is
strictly comparable to specimens from my sites on Alkali."[15]

The steep western and lower eastern slopes of the mound of Pueblo
I (Fig. 7) indicate that it grew up from the west, the people walking
out from their homes, climbing to the top of the growing mound, and
throwing their sweepings over onto the eastern side. The location of the
dump on the eastern side of the house mound, as at Chetro Ketl, was
probably the result of their observation of the prevailing westerly
winds and the desire not to have the trash blown back into their faces
and into their houses. It will be noticed that the northern end of the
Pueblo I dump is entirely on the east side of the excavated portion of
the refuse mound; the peak is in Trench 9. The peak in Section II is

in Trench 5, with a fairly even distribution east and west of that trench
but in a very steep slope on the west and a low gradual slope on the
east. In Section III the peak is in Trench 9, with a low slope toward
the west, and in Section IV the peak is in Trench 4, with a very steep
slope on the west and a slope only slightly less steep on the east. By
this tracing of peaks and slopes we may outline the original dump of
Pueblo I, a somewhat serpentine curving of the ridge, with the central
section closer than the ends to the house mound and wider than the nine
trenches excavated. (Fig. 7.) This Pueblo mound covered the Basket
Maker III hummock and extended beneath the Pueblo II dump and
roughly catercornered to it, to somewhere beyond the present excavations,
so that neither end has been uncovered and hence cannot be
plotted. The relative narrowness of the early mound in Section IV suggests,
however, that we are fairly close to the south end.

Refuse Mound of Pueblo II.

The mound of Pueblo II extends everywhere outside the limits of
the present excavation and beneath the top soil which covers its edges.
The excavations probably approach the edge most closely on the north
side. The trenches were carried only to somewhere near the center of
the mound as visible from the surface. The top of the dump as seen at
present rises in a gentle slope toward the center and falls away on all
sides; any sharp peak it once may have had has been eroded away by
the flattening effects of centuries of winds and rains. (Fig. 7.)

The Pueblo II deposition is made up of the Pueblo I complex with
the addition of appreciable amounts of Gallup and of Chaco Black on
White. Thus the Pueblo II complex may be outlined as containing
Gallup, Escavada, and some Chaco Black on White, Exuberant Corrugated
and the finer Chaco Corrugated,[16] plus the gray ware that
is either Lino or the bases of Kana-a vessels, and a small proware
that is either Lino or the bases of Kana-a vessels, and a small proportion
of Red Mesa Black on White. Mesa Verde influence is indicated
by finds of shards which appear to be preponderantly McElmo Black on
White (Gladwin).[17] The Mesa Verde sequences have never been worked
out in detail; descriptions on the types which precede the McElmo are
not available, and even those of the McElmo leave something to be
desired when one is attempting to differentiate between shards of the
Mesa Verde Black on White (Kidder) and the earlier McElmo type.
As nearly as could be determined, however, the shards here listed as
McElmo legitimately fall into that classification by their heavy and
simple design elements; that they belong in the Mesa Verde line, at
least, is certain.

Wingate (Haury)[18] and Puerco (Gladwin)[19] Black on Red and
Wingate Corrugated (Mera)[20] shards indicate relations with the
areas slightly to the south, where those types were common, and sporadic
pieces of Tusayan polychrome (Gladwin)[21] corroborate the evidence
of whole vessels of this type in graves that trade with the area to the
west was not uncommon. A very few shards of the fine Upper Gila
Corrugated (Kidder) with black burnished interior[22] and of the San
Francisco Red (Haury)[23] of the Mogollon area point to trade with the
southern part of New Mexico, and red shards with the cinder temper
common in the Flagstaff district suggest that they originated there,
although with a heavy outer red slip and no inner slip they are identical
with neither the unslipped Sunset Red (Colton)[24] nor the slipped Flagstaff
Red (Colton)[25] with its red interior slip and slipped burnished
black interior. Shards which might be Flagstaff Red except that their
temper is sand rather than cinder, and which might be Gila Red (Gladwin)[26]
except for the lack of pronounced striation on the outer red slip
obviously indicate trade somewhere to the south and west.

Apparently there never was much Chaco Black on White made
during the occupation of Mound 50; a few pieces were made, but this
ware was to grow into prominence, accompanied by the hold-over of
Gallup Black on White, in the Pueblo III complexes of Chetro Ketl and
of the other major ruins. It should be noted that where the Exuberant
Corrugated supposed to mark Pueblo II is prominent, Lino Gray follows
as a close second. Evidently the plain gray ware lasted over a
considerable period.

Other types of pottery supposedly limited to earlier periods are
found in the Pueblo II stratum, as listed above, and their presence may
be attributed to the two reasons already stated, wash from the high
ridge of Pueblo I material onto the growing mound of Pueblo II just
to the west and hold-overs of one type into the period of the next complex.
The pottery associations found in the dump are checked by those
found accompanying burials in the two main periods of occupation of
the house mound.

Summary

The refuse mound just to the east of Chaco Mound 50 represents
the sweepings of three periods, Basket Maker III, Pueblo I, and Pueblo

II. The only spot in which the Basket Maker III material is conspicuously
free from later contact is the small mound in the southeast corner
of the portion excavated. The Pueblo I sweepings cover over this
mound and extend roughly from the northeast to the southwest, with
a sharp ridge at the two ends and a wider slope in the center. The peak
of this dump in Section I is at the most eastern edge of the present excavations.
Material from this peak was undoubtedly washed onto and
mixed with the growing refuse of Pueblo II at the foot of and just to
the west of the peak of earlier material and accounts for the mixture of
material of the two periods which is more marked in Section I than
elsewhere.

The refuse of Pueblo II finally covered that of Pueblo I and spread
out beyond it, but the exact peripheries of this later mound are beneath
the drift which has since accumulated over it. The peak of the Pueblo
II refuse has been eroded until the top of the present mound is a gentle
slope on all sides.

The complexes of pottery types representing the three periods are
distinctive, although types from earlier periods are held over and types
prominent in later periods are found in small percentages in earlier
sweepings. The lack of marked profiles in the dump and this merging
of one period into the other in pottery types indicates continuous occupation
of the mound over the periods of Pueblo II and I and probably
through Basket Maker III, this first occupation being certain in the
near environs of Mound 50 if not directly upon it.

The complex which marks Basket Maker III here is made up of
Lino Gray and of La Plata Black on White.

That which marks Pueblo I is made up of Lino Gray, Red Mesa
Black on White, a smaller proportion of Escavada Black on White,
and some Exuberant Corrugated and a small amount of Gallup Black
on White.

The complex marking Pueblo II here consists of that of Pueblo I
plus a preponderant proportion of Gallup and Escavada, some Chaco
as well as Exuberant Corrugated, and a small amount of Chaco Black
on White.

Trade for Pueblo I is indicated by shards from the Mogollon districts,
from the Little Colorado and the Arizona Puerco, and from the
Flagstaff district.

Trade for both Pueblo I and Pueblo II is indicated by shards from
the Upper Gila and the Mogollon areas, from the Mesa Verde, Kayenta,
and Flagstaff districts of the San Juan, and from the Little Colorado.

There is no evidence that Mound 50 was occupied during the main
part of Pueblo III nor that the dump was used during Pueblo III.
Although it is impossible to state the exact date of abandonment of the
site, that should be set as at the end of Pueblo II or during the very

beginning of Pueblo III in the Chaco. The wall series and the pottery
complexes of Mound 50 tie in perfectly with those of Chetro Ketl and
thus amplify the sequences to extend from Basket Maker III to the
abandonment of Chetro Ketl after 1116 A. D. in Pueblo III.