 | The architecture of Pueblo Bonito : |  |
FOREIGN ROOMS IN PUEBLO BONITO
Elsewhere I have attempted to solve the puzzle of the extraordinary
assemblage of Late Bonitian pottery that Pepper found on the
floor of Old Bonitian Room 28, but I gave scant attention at the time
to several vessels recovered just inside Room 32 (Judd, 1954, pp.
22-27). At least four of those vessels (Pepper, 1920, figs. 47-49)
came from the Mesa Verde country, and their presence in an Old
Bonitian burial room raises a question as to the authorship of certain
nearby dwellings whose stonework does not conform to any local
pattern.
North of Pepper's four burial rooms is a narrow row of east-west
2-story houses the masonry of which, as illustrated, is neither Old
Bonitian nor Late Bonitian. I know less about this particular area
than is desirable at the moment because our observations hereabout
are all second-story observations and we had to reconcile them as
best we could with Hyde's ground-floor measurements (in Pepper,
1920, pp. 353-358).
Pepper (ibid., p. 180) describes the end walls of Room 36, for
example, as "merely partitions" and his figure 80 provides confirmation.
Although the lower part of the one illustrated appears to be at
home in Pueblo Bonito, or nearly so, the part above ceiling level consists
of unsystematic stonework that may be only a veneer but, nevertheless,
is very non-Chaco in appearance. And the same may be said
of the walls in Room 37, adjoining, as I judge from figure 81. It
is my guess, and only a guess, that these second-story partitions
are the work of masons foreign to Chaco Canyon but using salvaged
local building materials.
The east wall of Room 61 is described (ibid., p. 222) as "built of
large dressed stones . . . no chinking" while the south side "was
buit around upright stakes." Opposite this south-side wall, at the left
of the semioval door into Room 6, a wooden loop protruded from the
plaster as a means of holding a door slab in place. Although the
only one of its kind reported from Pueblo Bonito, this sort of door
fastener is relatively common in cliff-dwellings of southwestern
Colorado and southeastern Utah. Two such loops, each fitted with a
spatulate wedge found in the sand below, barred access to a wickerwork
granary in White Canyon that I photographed in 1907 and
which was later illustrated by Dr. Byron Cummings (1910, p. 23)
as more or less typical of those in the Kayenta country.
The Mesa Verde pottery from Room 32, the two small mugs from
(both P. II traits in southeastern Utah), and un-Chaco-like masonry
all unite to strengthen my belief that families from beyond the Rio
San Juan were welcomed at Old Bonito and occupied various rooms
including 35, 36, 37, and 61. These four apparently were created by
partitioning an Old Bonitian living-room fronting storerooms 1, 2, 5,
and 6. Hyde Expedition timbers from Rooms 32 and 36 unfortunately
remain undated (Douglass, 1921, p. 30) but it is to be recalled that
Roberts and Amsden found no fragment of Mesa Verde-like pottery
below the upper 50 inches of their 12-foot-deep West Court Test 2.
Thus Mesa Verde pottery was introduced at Pueblo Bonito some
time after arrival of the Late Bonitians.
The north face of Old Bonitian Room 28, as seen in Pepper's
figure 44, is a Late Bonitian veneer of second-type masonry and
is abutted by the partition between 28 and 28a. Room 28a, therefore,
is an Old Bonitian idea that followed the veneering, a Late Bonitian
veneering contemporaneous with construction of like walls in firstand
second-story rooms both east and west from 91 and 92.
It is quite obvious from Pepper's recorded notes and from what
we saw in the field that the Late Bonitians preëmpted and remodeled
many Old Bonitian homes in this north-central section and east
thereof. We observed the foundations for razed second-type walls
under the floors of several rooms; we saw where second-type masonry
had replaced first-type and where third-type had replaced the second.
Beginning in Rooms 71, 78, and 86 there is an abrupt substitution
of third-type masonry for that of Old Bonitian origin (pl. 22,
upper).
Late Bonitian architects rebuilt the east third of Old Bonitian
Room 71 and introduced a later floor about 6 inches above the original.
On this latter was a slab-lined fireplace, 2 feet 7 inches in
diameter and 14 inches from the end of a subfloor ventilator duct
directed toward the southeast corner (Pepper, ibid., p. 257).
Adjoining 71 on the west is Room 83, a much-altered Old Bonitian
living room in which Pepper (ibid., p. 269) noted three successive
floors. The second of these consisted of sandstone slabs laid in adobe
mud; the lower and earlier floor exhibited "a multiplicity of walls
and fireplaces." Obviously the occupants lived here a long while.
Unpublished Hyde negatives Nos. 275 and 276 show a west-end door,
its jambs rounded and whitewashed, about 2 feet above the uppermost
floor and 2 pairs of post steps below the sill.
| The architecture of Pueblo Bonito : | |