University of Virginia Library

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.