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Section E

Dating and Discussion

Dating.—Many wood specimens were obtained (the great majority
of juniper and cottonwood), but they were almost all rather badly
decayed. Dr. Hawley informs me that "most of the pine specimens
were too complacent in growth to be dateable; they had grown on
too well-watered land to be very dependent on annual precipitation."
Two beams from room 7 were, however, dated by Dr. Hawley and
checked by Dr. Haury. The one gave a bark date of 1043, the other
1077 plus 1 to 10. Two walls of room 7 showed refacing on the
interior in masonry of the Narrow Banded with Core Type. In Dr.
Hawley's opinion, the later date very probably indicates when the
room was repaired.

These two dates cannot, of course, be taken as representative of
the ruin's principal period of floruit. They give evidence only that
one room was used at least as late as these dates. Nevertheless the
presence of Sunset Red potsherds persistently on the floor level of
4 rooms and 3 kivas (and in the fill of most other rooms and kivas)
gives some ground for suspecting that a considerable portion of

Bc 51 was used at least as late as 1050. Colton and Hargrave[8] date
this pottery type as c. 1050 to 1200 and, while these authors are careful
to insist that the dates assigned be not taken too seriously, it is well
known that most of the Flagstaff region pottery types have been
scrupulously dated by association with tree ring chronology. On
the other hand, Deadman's Black on Red, a type dated by the same
authors at 750 to 900,[9] is found at floor level in one of the same
structures, as well as in other locations. Perhaps the few latter sherds
are intrusive or perhaps pottery types have greater overlaps than
pottery specialists have tended to recognize. The latter possibility
gains weight when we remember that whole vessels of such types as
Red Mesa and Gallup, Escavada and Sunset Red were found associated
with single burials.

All in all, neither tree ring nor pottery evidence would justify
more than the veriest guess as to the interval between the first building
in Bc 51 and the final abandonment. One point of great interest
should, however, be explicitly made. The weight of the data clearly
falls in favor of the hypothesis that Bc 51 was occupied (or, at very
least, used) synchronously (in part) with the occupation of the great
pueblos such as Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl.

Except for the evidence from masonry types (and somewhat
confirmed by pottery) that the northern end of Bc 51 was somewhat
more recent in construction and usage than the southern, very little
can be said even as to the relative age of various portions of the
ruin. Although excavation of the substructure rooms was not completed
in all cases, the evidence, so far as it goes, is against their being
definitely of an earlier period, as seemed to be the case in Bc 50. Here
there was not the sharp distinction in masonry type and in associated
pottery (nor did other artifacts show consistent differences between
sub- and superstructure levels). Certainly there is no evidence of an
appreciable time distinction between the lower and the upper rooms.
Indeed, judging by the comparative insensitivity of pottery and
artifact complexes and by negative evidence, there seems no reason
to believe that the rooms of Bc 51 were used over any very long
time span.

Discussion.—The excavation of the rooms and kivas of Bc 51
amplified and extended slightly the range of variation, but hardly
altered significantly the picture obtained by the excavation of Bc 50.
Available data do suggest that the construction of Bc 51 perhaps
began later and probably continued longer.

One of the most interesting features of Bc 51, as of Bc 50, is

that of the presence of a large number of burials in rooms. Dutton
found no adult burials in the rooms of Łeyit Kin.[10] Senter[11] has
reviewed the reported facts as to room burials in Chetro Ketl, Pueblo
Bonito, and Peñasco Blanco. The striking circumstance is that the
proportion of room burials to number of rooms is markedly greater

Figure 7—Scattered Bones in Room 5

Pot 1, Red Mesa Black on White; Pot 2, McElmo Ladle;

Pot 3, Red Mesa Bird Form; Pot 4, McElmo Bowl; Pot 6,

Deadman's Black on Red Bowl; Pot 7, Wingate Bowl.

at Bc 50 to 51 than for other published Chaco sites and indeed for
Southwestern sites generally. This fact induced many fruitless
speculations on the part of staff members—such as the possible significance
of the closeness of Casa Rinconada. One possibility which did
seem to merit close analysis was that the abandoned rooms of Bc 51
were used as burial places by those living in the large pueblos across
the canyon. However, study of the grave furniture indicates that it
could well be a random sample of the pottery and other artifacts
found at floor level and other loci in the ruin as a whole, except that the
predominance of Gallup Black on White with burials 15, 17, 18, and 26
in room 2 may possibly indicate a period appreciably later than that
characteristic of the ruin generally. In contrast, the Red Mesa and
Deadman's Black on Red vessels associated with some of the room 5
burials should—according to accepted views of the period of these
types—mean a relatively early date. Some burials, such as those in
room 5 (see Fig. 7), were badly scattered. But the fact that some
bones were found still in the position of articulation militates against
the chance of secondary burial and points rather to disturbance by
carnivores or rodents. This alternative gains force from the fact that
certain isolated human bones found in the refuse heap appeared
gnawed. In rooms 15 and 20 there was satisfactory evidence that
burials had occurred before the roofs had collapsed.

TABLE 3—BURIALS—CULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS

                                       

Burial[12] No.	Position of Body	Orientation	Location[13]	Wrappings	Accompanying Objects	Pottery Vessels[14]
[fraction 60 by 8]	partially flexed, on left side	E-W, facing south	Room 2	twilled mat	mano	S1 G1
[fraction 60 by 9]	partially flexed	E-W, facing southeast	Room 2	cotton cloth, twilled mat	mano	G1 (?)
[fraction 60 by 10]	extended	E-W, facing down	Room 2 below burial 60/8	twilled mat, twined mat, feather cloth		S1, F1
[fraction 60 by 12]	disturbed		Room 5	twilled mat, feather cloth	2 pieces of malachite	E2 M1
[fraction 60 by 13]	disturbed		Room 5		headboard	D1, W1, U1
[fraction 60 by 14]	disturbed		Room 5	twilled mat feather cloth
[fraction 60 by 15]	partially flexed, on right side	E-W, facing south and down	Room 2 below burial 60/10	twilled mat,[15] feather cloth	two bone beads, coiled basket	G5, E2,[16] M1, U1
[fraction 60 by 16]	partially flexed, on right side	E-W, facing south	Room 2 beneath 1st floor level
[fraction 60 by 17]	extended, on back (child)	E-W, facing up	Room 2 below burial 60/22	twilled mat	corn cob, three bone beads headboard	X1
[fraction 60 by 18]	extended, on back	E-W, facing south	Room 2	twilled mat		S1
[fraction 60 by 19]	disturbed (adult & child)		Room 7	matting
[fraction 60 by 22]	extended, on back (child)	E-W, facing up	Room 2 beside burial 60/18	tweilled mat
[fraction 60 by 24]	extended	N-S, facing east and down	Room 20	twined mat?	bone awl, squash seed, selenite crystal
[fraction 60 by 25]	disturbed		Room 18		"Bird's-nest" coiled basket (?)
[fraction 60 by 26]	partially flexed, on right side	E-W, facing north	Room 2 below 1st floor level	matting	turquoise, headboard	G2
[fraction 60 by 27]	flexed right side	E-W, facing south	Room 21		mano	W1, E1
[fraction 60 by 29]	flexed, on left side (infant)	E-W, facing south	Room 2 below 1st floor
[fraction 60 by 31]	extended on back with right arm under right pelvis (adult female)	W-E, facing up (See Plate 4)	Trench 26 Section 7		trough metate	M2, X1
[fraction 60 by 32]	partially flexed, on left side	S-N, facing west	Room 2 below 1st floor level			S1