University of Virginia Library

THE RUINS OF PUEBLO BONITO

Based on our tabulation (Appendix A), Pueblo Bonito included
an estimated 651 rooms of which 152 were Old Bonitian and the
remainder, Late Bonitian. If all were inhabited simultaneously, which
is unlikely, and if an average family of five occupied three rooms, a
local population of 1,090 is indicated. But these are only approximations;
the real totals lie beyond our reach. Thus, for our present purpose,
Pueblo Bonito at the height of its fame, A.D. 1000-1100 or
thereabout, was a compact pile of 600 or more rooms from one to
four stories high, the home of possibly 1,000 individuals (pl. 8).

Pueblo Bonito was the creation of two distinct peoples, each selfsufficient
and each with its own cultural heritage. The original settlers
had been in residence a long, long while before the second group
arrived to take up joint occupancy of the village and proceed, forthwith,
to dominate its varied activities. Lacking the names by which
they knew each other, I have called the first group "the Old Bonitians";
the second group "the Late Bonitians" because they were,
in fact, late comers to Pueblo Bonito. Their common home, more
than 3 acres in ground area, was strictly utilitarian; shelter and subsistence
were of primary concern to both peoples. Neither built
monumental religious structures; neither sought to commemorate
the accomplishments of previous leaders.

In 1920 during the Society's reconnaissance of the Chaco area the
four Zuñi accompanying me returned from their first tour of Pueblo
Bonito and voiced their joint conclusion: "White men built those
walls; Indians could not." From Simpson's time forward the masonry
of Pueblo Bonito and its neighbors has astonished all visitors to
Chaco Canyon, irrespective of nationality.

Pueblo Bonito was in ruin when the National Geographic Society
began its explorations in the spring of 1921. The pine and fir timbers
"in excellent condition" seen by Simpson, Jackson, and Mindeleff
had been pulled out or sawed off; many individual door and
ventilator lintels had been dislodged or severed with steel axes. Local
Navaho charge this vandalism to "sheep herders" and "soldiers" and
perhaps with some justification but part of the blame lies elsewhere.
In his letter of June 8, 1921, to the National Geographic Society,
S. L. Palmer observed that wood from the old ruin was
used for fuel when he and his family accompanied Richard Wetherill
to Pueblo Bonito in October, 1895. Later, and before passage of the
Antiquities Act of June 8, 1906, Wetherill erected his several homestead
buildings and, in part at least, roofed them with ancient timbers
from Pueblo Bonito.

In 1877, with particular reference to Pueblo Bonito, Jackson
(1878, p. 441) wrote "many of the vigas, which are in excellent
preservation, still retain their places and protect a number of rooms
on the first floor." If not before, then shortly after Jackson's visit
every room with ceiling intact had been discovered and appropriated
by transient whites. The Hyde Expeditions utilized Room 14b and
those nearby; Wetherill later repaired for his own use Rooms 25, 105,
119, and others adjacent to his residence. Room 295, which we
cleared, is not readily accessible but it had been entered, perhaps from
Room 88. Tin cans and broken glass strewed the floor; a large hole
had been broken through the southwest wall and nails driven into
its door lintel. Sometime later all beams and ceiling poles had been
severed with steel ax or saw.

Pueblo Bonito was an empty shell when the National Geographic
Society began its explorations and it was the desire of the Society's
Committee on Research to preserve it as such, a monument to its
prehistoric builders. Toward this end we employed each season one
or more crews to repair previous damage as our investigations advanced
(pl. 9, left). In this repair work, partly listed in Appendix C,
we used only sandstone and mud—materials the Bonitians had used—
and, where needed, ax-hewn timbers trucked in from Smith's Lake,
50 miles to the south. The old beam and ceiling-pole fragments we
introduced during these wall repairs do not, of course, date the
original masonry.

The cement capping about Kivas C and D (pl. 45, lower), erroneously
attributed to the National Geographic Society in Park Service
literature of the period, was actually an experiment in drainage

control undertaken by the National Park Service itself in April and
May 1925 (letter to the director from Superintendent Pinkley,
Dec. 24, 1925). Further experimentation was pursued during the
summers of 1927 and 1928 under personal supervision of Martin
L. Jackson, at that time custodian of Montezuma Castle National
Monument, Camp Verde, Ariz. The Pueblo Bonito Expeditions
used no cement in their repair work.

As stated heretofore, I regard Pueblo Bonito as the creation of
two distinct peoples, the Old Bonitians and the Late Bonitians. They
vanished 800 years ago, but we may know them from their distinctive
architecture and the products of lesser industries (Judd, 1954).
Presumably both peoples were born under the well-known Pueblo
matrilineal system wherein the mother ruled the family and owned
the house. Men might help with the heavier work of construction—
quarrying stone, fetching and placing beams—but the women presumably
laid the walls and plastered them, as women still did when
Bourke (1884) and Mindeleff (1891) visited the Hopi and Zuñi
villages. At that time family quarters might consist of one room or
half a dozen. Building and plastering normally were late winter or
springtime tasks when melting snow filled nearby pools. Living
rooms were to the fore, storerooms at the rear or underneath.

Old Bonito was a Pueblo II community in every respect, built of
wall-width slabs of sandstone, each slab spalled around the edge
"much as a flint blade would be chipped"—to quote Morris's (1939,
p. 34) singularly apt description—and held one upon another by mud
mortar pressed into place with bare fingers (pl. 10, 1). Wherever
seen about the pueblo, house walls of this character identify the
builders as Old Bonitians.

The exterior rear wall of Old Bonito, double-thick at floor level,
had no door. Outside and upon 4 to 6 feet of sand wind-piled
against that rear wall, Late Bonitian architects erected a single row
of rooms embodying the first of their three principal varieties of
stonework. To compensate for the slanting exterior of Old Bonito
the abutting new masonry was backed with building waste or, where
space invited, it rose to form a succession of wedge-shaped storerooms,
as from 101 east to Room 298 (fig. 4). One gains the impression
this addition was erected primarily to conceal the haphazard
irregularity of the old wall.

In sharp contrast to that of Old Bonito, Late Bonitian masonry
consists of a rubblework core faced on both sides by a veneer of
neatly fitted sandstone blocks. Foundations are of roughly broken,

Plate 2

Dead pine, Wirito's Rincon, southeast of Pueblo Bonito.

(Photograph by Karl Ruppert, 1922.)

Recumbent pine logs, head of Wirito's Rincon, 2 miles
southeast of Pueblo Bonito.

(Photograph by Neil M. Judd, 1926.)

Plate 3.—Pueblo Bonito from the north cliff in 1920.

The east and west refuse mounds, with Nelson's 1916 stratigraphic tests showing, lie beyond the ruin. At left, Wetherill's 1897 store.

(Photograph by Charles Martin, 1920.)

Plate 4

Upper: Rooms 122-124, rebuilt by Richard Wetherill, were repaired by the Pueblo Bonito
Expedition for laboratory use.

(Photograph by O. C. Havens, 1925.)

Lower: An apparently unfinished wall in the southwest corner, East Court, overlay older
structures. Above, the exterior of Rooms 150-152 with ancient repairs.

(Photograph by Neil M. Judd, 1923.)

Plate 5

Upper: East Court excavations near close of 1922 season. Room 190 and fragment of cross-court
wall lie below paired dump cars; Pit No. 3 lies between ruin and camp, right margin.

(Photograph by Neil M. Judd, 1922.)

Lower: The West Court at beginning of the 1924 season; Kiva 16, left foreground; 1898
Wetherill house and store, upper right.

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

unshaped stones as a rule and may be offset several inches or recessed
by a like amount—evidence that the foundation was prepared
in advance and not always to the satisfaction of the masons who followed.
Upper-story walls, invariably thinner than those next below,
suggest upward construction after each successive floor was completed,
hence the presence or absence of so-called floor offsets and
their variability.

Although it is possible to see others, I recognize three principal
varieties of Late Bonitian masonry. The first of these, that of the
outside row mentioned above, combines blocks of soft, friable sandstone
dressed on the exposed surface with hammerstones or abraders
and interlaced with quarter-inch-thick tablets of harder, thin-bedded,
laminate sandstone (pl. 10, 2).

In the second variety of Late Bonitian masonry (my third type
at Pueblo Bonito), tablets of laminate sandstone ½ to 1 inch thick
were neatly arranged between blocks of friable sandstone 3 to 4 inches
thick (pl. 10, 3). At its best this second variety, its individual blocks
hand-smoothed and of uniform size, had an artistic quality none will
deny (pl. 27, right) Later the denser laminate stone was often substituted.

As their experience with Chaco Canyon sandstone advanced, Late
Bonitian architects increasingly favored the harder, laminate variety
until, in their third and final variation (the last of my four Pueblo
Bonito types), friable sandstone was practically eliminated (pl. 10, 4).
This final variation—the climax of all Bonitian masonry—is largely
restricted to the southeastern portion of the pueblo where, with no
loss of time, it was substituted for an intended addition whose abandoned
foundations extend 500 feet eastward (fig. 11).

Soft, friable Cliff House sandstone is available all along the
base of the north canyon wall wherever portions have broken away
and the harder, thin-bedded variety was formerly to be had on top,
back some distance from the brink. Because it breaks readily into
blocks that fit snugly with a minimum of mortar, this thin-bedded
variety became an early favorite of Late Bonitian builders and they
eventually exhausted the supply. I recall a pile of it, a one-man
load, left on the cliff edge midway between Pueblo Bonito and
Chettro Kettle and individual pieces scattered through the sand below.

Together, these four distinct kinds of masonry—one, Old Bonitian;
three, Late Bonitian—frame Pueblo Bonito as we know it today.
Late Bonitian masonry has won for Pueblo Bonito a reputation that
will endure for all time, but, in our general admiration, the cruder

stonework of the Old Bonitians is commonly overlooked. This latter
never changed; it remained the same from beginning to end—wallthick
slabs of spalled sandstone bedded in mud mortar and stometimes
studded with thin stone chips (pl. 11, right). Late Bonitian builders
erected second-story, and possibly third-story, partitions upon pine
beams bridging lower rooms at ceiling level but the Old Bonitians
never attempted this architectural feat so far as we know. Nor did
they introduce longitudinal stringers within a wall to equalize vertical
pressure.

In an effort to illustrate the relationship of these four kinds of
masonry, one to another, I marked out three separate cross sections
with the expectation of showing thereon all pertinent data from our
excavations. That the results (figs. 13-15) are less than anticipated
may be attributed to my unwillingness to risk visible structures in
order to bare others deeply buried. Figure 2 is of the ground floor
only; our data pertaining to individual rooms, upper and lower, are
condensed in Appendices A and B.

Old Bonitian and Late Bonitian homes had their similarities and
their dissimilarities. They differed in size, construction, and built-in
fittings. Of 43 Old Bonitian ground floor rooms for which data
are available, ceiling height averages 7 feet and floor area 120¾
square feet. Of 86 first-story Late Bonitian rooms (12 of secondtype
construction; 40, third-type; 34, fourth-type) ceiling height
averages 8 feet 5½ inches; floor area averages a fraction over 142
square feet and increases with each advance in masonry.

Ceilings.—Late Bonitian ceilings consisted of carefully selected
pine and fir beams and poles supporting successive layers of dressed
willows or pine boards, cedar bark, and adobe mud (pl. 12, upper).
Old Bonitian ceilings, on the other hand, were casual assemblages of
whatever materials lay near at hand: cottonwood, pine, pinyon, or
juniper logs covered with brush, reeds or grass, cornstalks, and other
chance gleanings (pl. 12, lower). Old Bonitian beam ends are characteristically
conical, the beaverlike gnawing of a stone ax unmistakable.

Late Bonitian beams, ceiling poles, and door lintels were of selected
straight-grained timbers, felled and peeled while green, and
the knots rubbed off. Ceiling poles normally were seated in the wall
masonry a couple inches but beams continued all the way through,
their ends cut to a previously incised line, smoothed by a sandstone
abrader and mudded over when the wall was plastered (pls. 13,
right; 52, right). A flint chip marked the limiting line and Late

Bonitian ax-work, to the amazement of many observers, equaled
that of a course, cross-cut steel saw (pl. 61, left). Stone axes from
Pueblo Bonito are notoriously crude and few in number, but the Late
Bonitians in some unaccountable manner were capable of trimming
and placing their larger beams with an exactness that suggests prior
measurement. Old Bonitian timbers frequently extended several feet
through a wall, as in Rooms 302 and 304, but Late Bonitian timbers
that did so, as in 227, are few in number and may indicate no more
than an unwillingness to shorten a salvaged log.

In Old Bonitian homes pine ceiling poles of uniform diameter and
spit juniper shakes probably evidence Late Bonitian reconstruction.
Hatchways were present in both Old Bonitian and Late Bonitian
ceilings, usually in the southeast corner.

Doors.—There is no door in the rear wall of Old Bonito and only
7, so far as we know, that once opened courtward from its groundfloor
living-rooms. Those in Rooms 28 and 83 were provided with
masonry steps to court level; the other five may be improvisations,
cut through the old walls after later rooms were built in front of 306,
307, 323, 325, and 326.

Wherever we found them, Old Bonitian doors were more or less
oval, approximately 22 inches in maximum width by 30 inches high,
with mud-padded jambs rounding off top and bottom, and a sill height
varying from 12 inches in Room 32 to 4 feet 9 inches at the north
end of Room 325 (pl. 14, left). Late Bonitian doors, in contrast,
are neatly regular with low sills and lintel poles of uniform diameter
lashed together above the jambs and often extending to, or part
way to, the walls on either side (pl. 14, right).

Many Late Bonitian doors shown partly blocked on our ground
plan (fig. 2) probably were not blocked at all but had been left open
for convenient passage during construction and were filled in later to
the desired sill height. Hence the appearance of partial blocking seen
in some of our illustrations. Among others, doorways in Rooms
246B, 247, and 291 are silled with dressed pine boards; those in 227
and 228B, with inverted Old Bonitian tabular metates instead of the
customary sandstone slab.

Storeroom doors were fitted from the outside with slabs leaning
against secondary lintels and jambs (pl. 13, left). All secondary
lintels we noted at Pueblo Bonito were filled in above with masonry;
none stood free for support of a cold-weather blanket, as described
by Bourke (1884, p. 134) and Mindeleff (1891, p. 182) in Hopi and
Zuñi homes of the past century.

Both the diagonal door, leading cornerwise from one room to another,
and the Tau-shaped door appear to be Late Bonitian introductions.
Of the former (pl. 15, left) we know of only seven or
eight, all in houses of fourth-type masonry; of Tau-shaped doors,
32 in number, all but two are found in Late Bonitian walls.

Architecturally, the diagonal doorway seems such an admirable
idea one would expect to find it in general use and from an early date.
But quite the contrary. Relying upon memory rather than a fresh
search of the literature, I recall only one example from another Chaco
ruin and none at all among ancient cliff-dwellings. W. H. Jackson
(1878, p. 436) described a diagonal door in a second-story wall at
the northwest corner of Pueblo Pintado, but, surprisingly, he reported
none at Pueblo Bonito although those connecting Rooms 173B and
228B, 180B and 242B, must have been visible to him in 1877 as they
were to Mindeleff 10 years later. The feature appears occasionally
in P. III ruins north of Chaco Canyon but only occasionally.

The T- or Tau-shaped door is an enigma. It is widely distributed
throughout the Southwest both in historic and prehistoric villages,
but no one to my knowledge has yet advanced a convincing explanation
of its form or purpose. I have seen T-doors in prehistoric ruins
as far west as Navaho Mountain but in none earlier than P. III.
At Pueblo Bonito T-shaped doors were peculiar to the Late Bonitians
since only two examples are known in Old Bonitian houses, and
one of these, that connecting Rooms 321 and 323, is so conspicuously
framed in third-type stonework as to evidence Late Bonitian alterations.
Without regard to masonry, 23 of our 32 T-shaped doors occur
in ground floor rooms, eight in those of the second story, and one in
the third story, between Rooms 174C and 175C. This latter and
those in the west walls of 226 and 227 were interior doorways; all
others faced upon one of the courts. Largest of all, 7 feet 4 inches
high and a foot above the floor, opened through the east wall of
Room 334 upon the roof of Kiva T (pl. 16, left).

Two miniature T-shaped recesses, both empty, occur in the south
wall of Old Bonitian Room 326B (pl. 11, left) which stands 8 feet
4 inches above its floor level with no trace of ceiling poles. Rarely
does an Old Bonitian house boast a third story.

Ventilators are seen in rooms of all four masonry types. Altogether
we have record of 183 of which 28 appear in 10 Old Bonitian rooms;
11 in six houses of second-type construction; 33 in 19 third-type structures,
and the remainder in 53 fourth-type rooms six of which are in
the third story. Ventilators vary in their dimensions and in height

above the floor; those of the second-story are usually larger than firststory
ventilators. Of our total, 122, or 67 percent, had been wholly or
partially closed with masonry, usually to leave a shallow inside recess.

Since ventilators presumably were intended to provide cross ventilation,
the blocking of them, whether partial or complete, would
seem to indicate a desire for simple physical comfort. Winters are
cold in Chaco Canyon and reduced or closed ventilators would lessen
winter drafts. I place no faith in theories that the blocking was a
defensive measure. Nine ventilators in the west walls of two Old
Bonitian storerooms, 320 and 217B, were sealed with stonework when
the Late Bonitians erected their 2-story row of second-type rooms
adjoining.

Storage shelves and clothes racks.—Single poles, 2 to 3 inches in
diameter, across the width of a room and 5 to 5½ feet above its
floor presumably served for hanging blankets and similar materials
as such poles still do in Pueblo homes. At least five second-type Late
Bonitian rooms (200, 203, 204, 209, 299) had been equipped with one
or two single poles of this sort. Of 16 two-pole racks noted, 4 occur
in Old Bonitian rooms (298B, 307-I, 315, 320) and obviously were
introduced after construction.

Pepper (1920, p. 223) describes a 3-foot-high shelf at the west
end of Room 62—three 4-inch-diameter logs, 2-inch poles above them,
and a reed mat lashed on top by means of cedar splints and yucca
thongs—and implies a second shelf at the east end. With little more
than standing room between, two such shelves would measurably increase
the storage capacity of a given room. Apparently such storage
shelves were more frequent in the upper rooms of Pueblo Bonito.

Unpublished Mindeleff photographs show seven, possibly eight,
close-lying pole seatings in the remaining north third of the west wall
of Room 179C a couple inches below a half-blocked ventilator, but
no provision had been made for a similar shelf in Room 180C, adjoining,
where two west ventilators remain open. Seven pole seatings
at lintel level of the southwest door in Room 185B and immediately
below a ventilator were not matched by like seatings in the
north half.

Seven-pole shelves may have been standard in upper storage rooms.
Mindeleff photographed such a series in the west half of the north
wall, Room 187C, at still level of the third-story west door—a series
that we carefully preserved during 1923 repairs (pl. 9, left) but
which subsequently was lost when the Braced-up Cliff collapsed.

Granaries.—In the traditional P. II arrangement of Old Bonito,

storerooms stood at the rear, behind the dwellings but connected with
them. On the earthen floor of remodeled Room 92, which is the
second story of 3a (elsewhere described as Room 97), Pepper (ibid.,
p. 298) found "a great deal of corn . . . bean bushes . . . still
green . . . and beans in the pod." These freshly harvested crops
may have been piled there temporarily, pending transfer to more
secure storage. Burned corn-on-the-cob and pinyon nuts were noted
in Room 5, a ground-floor storeroom. Stone-walled bins are described
in Room 85, some fitted with slab doors and built one upon another.

Late Bonitian housewives preferred jar-shaped storage facilities
in out-of-way places. Four outworn Corrugated-coil pots, one of
them containing a quantity of unidentifiable grass seed, had been
concealed under the floor of Late Bonitian Room 128. The five
Banded-neck cook pots buried to the rim beneath the floor of Old
Bonitian Room 323 were Old Bonitian and may have been placed
there in imitation of a contemporary Late Bonitian practice (Judd,
1954, pls. 50-51).

Subfloor jar-shaped pits also served for Late Bonitian storage.
We found five of them, averaging 42 inches in maximum diameter
by 54 inches deep under the floor of Room 266, each rimmed to receive
a discoidal sandstone slab at floor level. The five had been dug
into clayey sand so compact there was no need for a plaster lining.
Similar but smaller pits were exposed under Rooms 282 and 294
and still another, 46 inches in diameter by 50 inches deep, was noted
outside Room 177.

Milling rooms.—So far as we know, only two among the 300-odd
ground floor rooms in Pueblo Bonito, 90 and 291, were equipped with
binned metates for grinding the daily ration of maize. Both were
Late Bonitian rooms and both had been stripped of their mills and
bin slabs at the time of abandonment or before. We observed no
trace of a milling bin in first-story Old Bonitian rooms and Pepper
mentions none. Obviously the housewives of Pueblo Bonito kept
and used their metates in second- and third-story living rooms.

All Pueblo Bonito metates are of sandstone, troughed, and open
at one end. None has an over-all grinding surface such as that from
Room 5, Pueblo del Arroyo (Judd, 1959, p. 106). Mills of the Old
Bonitians, to judge from Pepper's observations and our own, are
broad, thin, and shallow-grooved—more deliberately trimmed, perhaps,
but otherwise comparable to the tabular metates of Chaco
Canyon BM. III and P. I. peoples (Roberts, 1929, p. 132; Judd,

1924, p. 402)—while those of the Late Bonitians were 4 or 5 inches
thick, large and heavy, sometimes too bulky for a strong man to turn.

Fireplaces.—Of all the hearths on which Bonitian meals were prepared,
we have record of only 69, all but two in ground-floor rooms.
Twenty-five occur in 16 Old Bonitian dwellings; 44 in 36 Late
Bonitian houses. Some were situated in the middle of the floor,
more or less; others ranged along the wall or in a corner. Irrespective
of placement, most of our 69 fireplaces were slab-lined and
circular, or nearly so; 14 were lined with masonry and plastered; 5
were equipped with sandstone fire dogs; 7, including that in Old
Bonitian Room 330, were rimmed with adobe.

Late Bonitian architects built Rooms 91 and 92 upon the walls of
Old Bonitian Rooms 3 and 3a. A fireplace in second-story Room 91
is described by Pepper (1920, p. 40) as slab-lined; the one in 92 as
shallow and probably rimmed with adobe (ibid., p. 299). Since the
bottom of this latter was no more than a thin layer of mud spread
directly upon the pine poles and brush ceiling of 3a, it is surprising
there had not been another destructive conflagration here. Inadequate
protection from second- and third-story hearths probably
accounted for most of the fires cited by Pepper.

What my notes describe as "fire pits," thus to distinguish them
from domestic hearths, are of Late Bonitian construction but unknown
function. We came upon seven of which these four are thoroughly
typical: (1) In Room 221, an open-air work space, pit 3 feet 7
inches east-west by 28 inches wide and 31 inches deep, masonrylined,
filled with scorched sand and a scattering of charcoal; (2) 27
inches outside the southwest corner of Room 314, slab-lined pit 31
inches north-south by 21 inches wide and 27 inches deep, surrounded
by flagstones; (3) north of Kiva X on the last recognizable West
Court surface, masonry-lined and plastered pit 3 feet 8 inches wide
and originally 5 feet 7 inches north-south but subsequently divided
by a 2-foot-thick partition and both sides continued in use (pl. 17,
upper); (4) Kiva R roof level north of the Kiva Z enclosure, 5 feet
north-south by 35 inches wide by 49 inches deep, masonrylined
and plastered (pl. 18, left). The plaster of this latter was reddened
by fire but not fused; sand and sandstone spalls filled the lower
2 feet, sand with bits of charcoal the remainder. Three others were
noted subfloor: two in Room 215 and one in Room 220. In each
of the seven instances there were no potsherds among the fill; no
bone fragments, burned or unburned. Three pits were oriented northsouth
but their dimensions varied.

Conflagrations.—Pepper repeatedly cites evidence of fire in rooms
excavated by the Hyde Expeditions, and we noted other instances
of charred timbers, smoke-blackened walls, and burned sand upon
the floor. Fire was an understandable hazard of occupancy, but the
possibility of fires set by raiding parties long after desertion of the
village is not to be dismissed lightly. Throughout the Plateau
Province one may hear tales of ancestral Navaho, Ute, and Apache
warriors who drove the Cliff Dwellers and contemporary peoples
from their homes and then fired the buildings. Holsinger (MS.,
p. 17) may have been echoing such a story when he reported that about
40 rooms in the two easternmost rows at Pueblo Bonito had been
burned, presumably by enemies.

Whatever the cause, fire had gutted many of these east-side rooms
some time after they were vacated. In Room 257, for example, sand
varying in depth from 19 inches at the north end to 27 inches at the
south had collected upon the floor before the ceiling burned and
collapsed.

Wall plaster in Room 260 was fire-reddened above a sand deposit
several inches deep. Blown sand 4½ feet in depth filled the southwest
corner of Room 266 sloping thence to 18 inches in the opposite corner.
Charred timbers lay upon that sand with more blown sand above
the timbers and then masonry fallen from the second and third stories.
The third-story south wall of Room 171 had collapsed and fallen
outward and its outermost building stones inexplicably were overlain
by a layer of burned sand, sticks, and cedarbark—a post-abandonment
accumulation.

Pepper (1920, fig. 131) pictures 11 Late Bonitian pitchers on
the floor of Room 99 half buried by stratified sand and only the
exposed portions burned. When we cleared Old Bonitian Room 298
we learned that fire had destroyed both the first- and second-story
ceilings but had barely scorched a blanket of wood chips spread over
the lower floor. Whether these evidences of fire at Pueblo Bonito
point to domestic carelessness or to post-occupancy raids is open to
question but there can be no doubt that such flimsy hearths as those
in Rooms 91 and 92 were ever-present dangers.

Wind-borne sand.—Sand is everywhere present in Chaco Canyon
today, and wind-blown sand obviously was a daily annoyance to the
housewives of Pueblo Bonito. It blew through open doors and sifted
through ceilings. When Pepper entered Room 3 he found 2 or 3
feet of sand upon the floor; sand was 3 to 4 feet deep in Room 3a;
4 to 12 inches deep on the floor of Room 92 (second story of 3a).

Six feet of wind-borne sand had piled up against the rear wall of
Old Bonitian Room 5 before the Late Bonitians built Room 203 upon
that sand (fig. 14). Sand continued to accumulate while second-type
masonry was in vogue. Around on the west side of the village it
had accumulated to a depth of 3 feet 9 inches above approximate
floor level of 3 unexcavated and unnumbered second-type rooms before
Late Bonitian architects began their third-type Room 117
(pl. 37, upper).

Chaco Canyon's inexhaustible sand is carried on the prevailing
upcanyon winds by day and back again at night, but our efforts to
measure its rate of deposition proved unsuccessful. By early June
one season a foot of sand had settled in the lee of a packing box I
had anchored 50 feet west of Room 115 the previous fall and an unknown
quantity had blown unchecked across the top. Bryan (1954,
p. 21) estimated that 4-6 feet of blown sand had collected on the north
side of Pueblo Bonito during the period 1900-1921 or at the rate of 3
inches a year. My own guess would double that rate. Wind-borne
sand bulked large in every stratigraphic section we laid bare, including
those in the two south refuse mounds.

Until 1903 when wind-blown sand barred the way, Hyde Expedition
freight wagons traveled the old Farmington road across the
mouth of Escavada Wash and northward (Bryan, 1954, fig. 1).
Later, a substitute road left the Chaco by way of Mockingbird Canyon;
still later, and currently, by way of the rocky Rincon del
Camino. In 1920 drifted sand forced our reconnaissance wagon, oldtime
freighter Jack Martin at the whip, far out into the arroyo channel
as we left Chaco Canyon, crossed the Escavada, and turned
toward Farmington.

Defensive measures.—Bonitian families had scant protection
against wind-driven sand, but they did their best to guard against
marauding enemy bands. There was no door in the outside, rear wall
of Old Bonito, but outside doors were provided for each room, upper
and lower, in the 2-story row of second-type-masonry houses the
Late Bonitians built to enclose the old settlement. And each of these
Late Bonitian doors, to judge by the duplicating stonework, was
sealed almost immediately and left sealed. Not until the 19th century
was that blocking masonry pried loose (pls. 19, right; 26, upper).

In their next two constructional programs Late Bonitian architects
presumably allowed only three external first-story doorways,
those in Rooms 118, 154, and 155, and each of these likewise had
been blocked. Only one outside second-story door was permitted so

far as we know, that in Room 182B, (pl. 13, right) and none at all,
apparently, in third- and fourth-story rooms. Neither Jackson's description
nor Mindeleff's 1887 photographs offer any evidence of an
outside balcony, as at Chettro Kettle and Pueblo del Arroyo. Lacking
external doorways to family apartments and with only one common
gateway to the village, Pueblo Bonito was virtually a walled
town.

The sole entrance to Pueblo Bonito, that in the southeast corner
of the West Court between Rooms 137 and 140 (fig. 2), was originally
7 feet 10 inches wide. After an unknown interval this passageway
was barred by a single crosswall with a 32-inch-wide door
in the middle. Later, this reduced opening was blocked to leave,
front and back, shallow alcoves presumably sheltering ladders to be
pulled to the rooftops in time of need. There must have been pressing
reason for this deliberate and progressive closing-in!

What is now represented to visitors as a second village gateway,
in the southwest corner of the East Court is an error for which I am
partially responsible. Room 155, previously cleared, had been refilled
with excavation waste thrown out of 152. When we carted away this
waste to make grade for our dump cars and track we removed some
of the broken masonry, disintegrated and much reduced in the interval
since excavation (pl. 5, upper). The south door of Room 155,
shown open with sill at floor level on unpublished Hyde negative
570, presumably had been blocked during occupancy as was that
in Room 154, adjoining. My failure partly to restore these broken
walls left a low place between Rooms 154 and 156 that furnished
some one with the idea of a second village entrance, balancing that
to the West Court. On the other hand, Jackson's 1877 restoration
of Pueblo Bonito shows a broad East Court gateway hereabout (pl.
49, upper).

The blank outside wall of Old Bonito, the promptly sealed doors
in the initial Late Bonitian addition to the pueblo and omission of
external doors thereafter, the barring of the lone town gateway, and
evidence of prehistoric vandalism in Old Bonitian burial rooms
(Judd, 1954, pp. 325-341), all combine to suggest early and recurrent
hostile pressure against the inhabitants of Pueblo Bonito. The
source of that pressure is conjectural, but it may well have been the
Largo-Gallina area 100 miles to the northeast, whence came, presumably,
the conical-bottomed pots we recovered from Kiva W and
Room 314 (Judd, 1954, p. 195).

All Late Bonitian dwellings, including 314, had been stripped of

their contents and vacated. This fact might be interpreted as evidence
of internecine strife but post-abandonment fires and the plundering
of eight Old Bonitian burial rooms were not the work of
neighbors. There are those who argue that harassment from nomadic
groups rather than drought or impoverished soil initiated the
Pueblo III exodus from the San Juan drainage, including Chaco
Canyon. Others argue as convincingly that intramural quarreling,
as happened at Oraibe in 1906, could have spurred abandonment of
the northern mesas and valleys. Together internecine strife, or external
harassment, plus droughts and impoverished soil would have
proved a combination no superstitious Pueblo farmer could withstand.

During our study of Bonitian architecture we collected portions
of 97 constructional timbers—not all we might have collected, as
we know in restrospect, but what seemed at the time as an adequate
selection of those we happened upon. The science of dendrochronology
has advanced since its crude beginnings at Pueblo Bonito in
1922, and the samples we took for Dr. Douglass will reveal more
than their dates as research upon them continues at the University
of Arizona. Two former Douglass students, Terah R. Smiley and
Bryant Bannister, have recently reviewed our 97 specimens, here
listed by their original field number (the JPB numbers of Douglass
publications), source, and masonry type and have revised several terminal
dates previously announced.

TREE-RING DATES FROM PUEBLO BONITO

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Field No.			Masonry type
	Room	Location	1	2	3	4
1	245	Subfloor chamber, south end			1050
2	227	Beam end from R. 173 [same as K-9; H-16 collected by E.H.M.]				1078
3	227	E-W beam [K-8]				1075
03	227	Beam end from R. 173				1076
003	227	Beam end from R. 227-I				1053
4	244	Beam fragment				decayed
5	244	Beam fragment				1060
6	244	Beam fragment				1097
7	244	Beam fragment				1078
8	244	Beam fragment				1078
10	256	Charred fragment				1050
14	257	Above blown sand, south of wattled wall				1081
15	257	Above blown sand, south of wattled wall				1124
16	257	Above blown sand, south of wattled wall				1047
17	257	Above blown sand, south of wattled wall				1126
18	257	Above blown sand, south of wattled wall				1080
19	257	Above blown sand, south of wattled wall				1083
20	257	Above blown sand, south of wattled wall				juniper
21	257	Above blown sand, south of wattled wall				juniper
22	227-I	Charred beam fragment				1064
23	227-I	Charred beam fragment				1081
24	242					1080
25	242					1081
26	—	—				—
27	268	Rectangular post, west wall slot			1080
28	162	Pilaster log, south side			juniper
29	162	Pilaster log, south side			juniper
30	162	Pilaster log, south side			juniper
31	162	Pilaster log,			juniper
32	162	Pilaster log,			juniper
33	162	Pilaster log,			juniper
34	162	Pilaster log,			juniper
35	259					juniper
36	Kiva J	Pilaster No. 4			juniper
37	Kiva J	Pilaster No. 5			1080
38	Kiva C	Pilaster No. 8			1120
39	Kiva H	Pilaster No. 2			juniper
40	Kiva H	Pilaster No. 8			1054
41	161	Pilaster No. 7			juniper
42	Kiva B	Pilaster No. 4			1063
43	Kiva B	Pilaster No. 5			1055
44	Kiva B	Pilaster No. 2			juniper
45	Kiva B	Pilaster No. 3			juniper
46	264	Beam			1040
47	62(?)	Hyde dump, north side Kiva G
48	57	Beam end, north wall				1071
49	55-57	Stringer in wall between				1083
50	251	S. jamb post, east door to R. 250			juniper
54	—	Beam, Wetherill store, outside R. 14b				1035
55	228	E beam, N-S pair, south end				1073
56	228	E beam, N-S pair, north end				1073
57	228	W beam, N-S pair, north end				complacent
58	228
67	292	Beam from R. 293			920
68	296		932
69	296		1047
70	Kiva L	Roofing pole			1061
71	Kiva L	Roofing pole			complacent
72	Kiva L	Roofing pole			complacent
73	Kiva L	Roofing pole			complacent
74	Kiva L	Roofing pole			complacent
75	298		cottonwood
76	—	North of R. 295				1041
77	—	North of R. 295				complacent
78	—	North of R. 295				complacent
79	290-291	Beam under South wall (across N arc Kiva L)			1061
80	3c(?)	[R. 111A] beam	cottonwood
81	Kiva L	Roofing pole, 12th layer from top			1047
82	6	Post step at south door	decayed
83	305	Beam fragment		1033
90	308	Beam fragment		complacent
91	308	Beam fragment		complacent
92	Kiva P	Pilaster log			juniper
93	Kiva L	Pilaster No. 1			1011
94	Kiva L	Pilaster No. 6			juniper
95	—	Wetherill "gas house"				1057
96	—	Wetherill "gas house"				1062
97	286	Subfloor kiva, post, east side			1088(?)
98	286	Subfloor kiva, post, east side			1091
99	—	Fallen tree, southeast corner, West Court (A.D. 983)
104	317	Ceiling pole	828
105	317	Ceiling pole	859
106	325	Post, southeast corner	919
107	320	Beam [3-4″ E-W beam]	919
108	320	Beam [3-4″ E-W beam]	919
109	320	Beam [3-4″ E-W beam]	919
110	—	Ceiling pole, narrow space west of R. 320B		complacent
113	325	Post, northeast corner	919
114	323	Beam	935
115	323	Beam	935
116	323	Post under beam No. 114	919
117	323	Post under beam No. 115	919
118	327	Beam
120	327	Beam from R. 325
122	Kiva X	Beam from west, 5″ dia.			1034
123	Kiva X	Beam			—
130	261	Beam [prob. from R. 267]			1070(?)
145	314	Beam above fill in OB room			complacent

As will be noted from the foregoing, the National Geographic
Society collected at Pueblo Bonito samples of 97 constructional timbers
in 33 rooms and 9 kivas. Of this total, however, 38 (40 percent)
were not datable, either because the growth rings were too uniform
("complacent" in the Douglass terminology) or because the
wood—juniper, pinyon, or cottonwood—is not yet readable. Of the
remaining 59 specimens, 13 came from Old Bonitian houses and,
except one reused 1047 beam, their cutting dates range from A.D.
828 to 935. Seven of these dates are identical, A.D. 919.

Seventeen specimens felled between 1011 and 1120, including a
second obviously reused example dated 920, were collected in thirdtype
rooms, and 28 other specimens, all cut between 1035 and 1126,
came from fourth-type structures. Room 305 is our only dwelling of
second-type masonry yielding a datable timber, a single specimen
felled in A.D. 1033.

Thus, excepting the two clearly salvaged, the Pueblo Bonito Expedition's
59 datable timbers fall into two groups, one bracketing the

years A.D. 828 to 935 and the other 1011 to 1126. The first group
is from Old Bonitian structures and the second, from Late Bonitian
houses. Together, the 59 are too few in number to have more than
a suggestive value but they do suggest periods of constructional
activity.

If 107 years seems too short a period for the building of Old
Bonito, with its 8 feet of rubbish piled out in front, it is to be
remembered that our bracket is based upon 13 specimens only, all
from larger rooms where pine and fir logs were utilized. Among
Hyde Expedition beams submitted to him for cross dating with
Aztec Ruin, Douglass (1921, p. 30) noted two from Rooms 32 and
36 in the north-central part of the old pueblo. Both, unfortunately,
remain undated.

It will be observed also that two or more timbers with the same
cutting date were recovered in only four rooms and that three of
these (320, 323, 325) are in Old Bonito. (A previously sawed log in
Room 228 was sampled twice.) Two pine beams from Old Bonitian
Room 323, both felled in A.D. 935, had been propped with posts cut
16 years earlier. Reuse seems undeniable. Reuse, even repeated
reuse, of constructional wood is a long-established Pueblo practice,
as is the stacking of logs against future need.

In his review of material collected in Hopi villages by the second
Beam Expedition, that of 1928, Douglass (1939) remarked that some
of the logs represented had been in use for hundreds of years and were
noticeably worn in consequence. While this may have been equally
true of some of the pinyon and cottonwood logs from smaller rooms
of Old Bonito, none of the pine and fir timbers we recovered, large or
small, exhibited wear in any appreciable degree. They had been cut,
peeled, and used without delay.

Our 46 dated timbers from Late Bonitian structures represent
a very small portion of the total required to roof Pueblo Bonito.
That total numbered in the thousands. Over 300 logs, long and
short, were utilized in the cribbed ceiling of Kiva L and Kiva L was
only one of perhaps 30 Late Bonitian kivas in use contemporaneously.
In addition there were the dwellings and storerooms of a
thousand people, more or less.

The JPB 99 of our list is from a much decayed pine that had stood
at the south end of the West Court while Pueblo Bonito was inhabited
(pl. 1). Initially Douglass (1935, p. 47) gave this fragment a
tentative date of A.D. 1017 ± 35, but in a later review Smiley fixed
the outermost surviving ring at 983. One may only guess at the number

of annual rings lost through disintegration but that lone, midvalley
straggler from the Chaco forest obviously witnessed the unfolding
of much Pueblo Bonito history.

Added to those we recovered within the walls of Pueblo Bonito,
our list includes three samples, JPB 54, 95, and 96, from fine old
timbers in buildings Richard Wetherill erected between 1897 and
1910. The first of these, JPB 54, identifies a beam from the trading
post Wetherill built in the autumn of 1897 outside Room 14b (Pepper,
1920, fig. 4) and which we razed in 1923; JPB 95 and 96 are beam
samples from a square, isolated stone building that is identified on
Holsinger's 1901 plan of Pueblo del Arroyo as "employees quarters"
(Judd, 1959, fig. 45) but which Jack Martin, a Hyde Expedition
teamster, called "Wetherill's gasoline house." This same small building
is listed as "Tanner's garage" for specimens 2345 and 2346, both
with a cutting date of 1065, collected for Gila Pueblo in 1940 by Dr.
Deric O'Bryan.

O'Bryan (personal communication) also sectioned six ceiling poles
in Room 97, a 2-story Old Bonitian room revamped by the Late
Bonitians, and reported cutting dates at 1026, 1057, 1067, 1071, 1073,
and 1092. Four timbers from another second-type room, 300, were
dated 1029, 1040, 1044, and 1047. Gila Pueblo employed a mechanical
method for counting rings but the results obtained rarely varied more
than a year or two from those recorded by Douglass.

O'Bryan for Gila Pueblo is among those who have collected treering
material in Chaco Canyon since conclusion of the Pueblo Bonito
Expeditions in 1927. He lists two constructional dates from Rooms
239 and 240, respectively, on the periphery of Kiva D, one (No. 2291)
collected by G. Vivian in 1940 while repairing the southwest bench
in Kiva F, and several from timbers, provenience unknown, utilized
by Richard Wetherill in reroofing Bonitian rooms for his own use.
Timbers that were sound, unscarred, and unclaimed were there for
the taking when Wetherill came to establish his home in treeless
Chaco Canyon and, however much we may regret the fact today, I am
not among those who condemn him for having taken advantage of
his opportunity.

Bryant Bannister (1960) dates at A.D. 1030, 1031, and 1077 three
beams recovered by National Park Service personnel during demolition
of "Ackerly House," the former Wetherill dwelling and store at
the southwest corner of Pueblo Bonito (pl. 5, lower). Despite field
numbers since added, the original National Geographic Society list
ended with JPB 145, as indicated above.

Plate 6

Left: A stratigraphic
test 20 feet
deep, West Refuse
Mound.

(Photograph by
O. C. Havens,
1921.)

Right: An exploratory
West
Court trench revealed
razed buildings
and an Old
Bonitian trash
heap.

(Photograph by
O. C. Havens,
1925.)

Plate 7

Upper: Pueblo Bonito from the north cliff. Pit No. 3 lies at left of the path, mid-way between
ruin and camp.

Lower: Beginning West Court excavations. North wall of Room 133 in foreground.

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

Plate 8

The East Court at Pueblo Bonito as it may have appeared about A.D. 1050.

(From the original drawing of Kenneth J. Conant, 1926.)

Plate 9

Repairing north wall of fourth-story Room 189D. At right,
holes for 7-pole storage shelf, Room 186C, and repaired areas
(lighter stonework).

(Photograph by Neil M. Judd, 1923.)

National Geographic Society repairs in third-story Room 180C;
ceiling-pole level of Room 179 in foreground.

(Photograph by Neil M. Judd, 1921.)

1. Spalled-sandstone slabs of wall width laid in
abundant quantities of mud and often protected
from the elements by closely placed stone chips.

2. Rubble veneered with casual blocks of friable
sandstone dressed on the face only and chinked all
around with chips of laminate sandstone.

3. Rubble veneered with matched blocks, either of
laminate or dressed friable sandstone or both, alternating
with bands of inch-thick tablets of laminated
sandstone.

Plate 10.—The four principal types of masonry at Pueblo Bonito, each represented by a
2-foot square section.

4. Rubble veneered with laminate sandstone of
fairly uniform thickness laid with a minimum of
mud plaster between.

Plate 11

Left: South end
of Old Bonitian
Room 326 with
small T-shaped recess
in secondstory
wall.

Right: Smallstone
protection
against rain and
wind-blown sand,
exterior of Old
Bonitian Room 102.

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

The ceiling of Late Bonitian Room 14b included a layer of hand-smoothed willows.

Plate 12

A typical Old Bonitian ceiling usually contained a layer of chico brush.

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

Plate 13

Left: Late Bonitian
door fitted
with secondary
jambs for retention
of doorslab from
Room 243.

(Photograph by
Neil M. Judd,
1926.)

Right: Blocked
outside door, Room
182B. First-story
beam ends were
severed flush and
plastered over.

(Photograph by
O. C. Havens,
1925.)