University of Virginia Library

General Features of Superstructure (Pueblo II)

The superstructure or Pueblo II structure gives the essential character
to the mound. This structure was composed of twenty-four rooms
of which four on the east side, Numbers 12, 13, 23 and 24, were not true

Map IV. Plat of Excavations

(As of August 20, 1936)

rooms but kiva enclosures. The twenty rooms remaining were arranged
in a double row north and south with five additional rooms placed
on the east side to form a structure roughly T shaped in plan. The
kivas, four in number, were placed on the east side of the structure.[2]

Masonry. The room walls of the Pueblo II pueblo were of poorly
constructed stone masonry of single thickness, having no rubble or
stone core. The essential peculiarities of this type of masonry are: the
use of rather large building blocks, all of sandstone, roughly squared,
most of them naturally so, a few of them pecked and shaped, and nonbanded.
These comparatively large blocks (average dimensions
14″ x 6″ x 8″) were interespersed with much adobe plaster studded with
many small spalls of sandstone chips, water-washed pebbles, and potsherds.
This type of masonry, although varying slightly from room to
room, is the type throughout the Pueblo II structure (Plates VI, VIIa,
b). It was quite evident that Rooms 8, 18, and 19, were added on to the
rest of the pueblo after the building of the original structure. The
character of the walls and viga supports, and the amount of debris give
evidence of a second story over Rooms 1, 2, 3, 4, 22, and possibly 14.
Of the nature of this, little may be said except that apparently the
masonry was of the same general type as that below. The single wall
thickness does not hold up well and any slight sinking of the ground,
such as that which occurred in several places because of a settling of
the Pueblo I structure underneath, causes bad distorting and buckling
of these thin Pueblo II walls. In several places, in order to get down
to the Pueblo I and Basket Maker levels with safety to the students and
workmen, it was necessary to remove portions of the badly sagging
and unsafe walls.

Openings. These walls were pierced in many places by numerous
"windows" or doorways, some open and some sealed, the sealing being
done with the same types of masonry and the same shard spalling as
accompanied the walls of the rooms. Most of these doorways were provided
with a well-worn sill and lintel, and, in one case, wooden uprights
on the sides. The lintels also were of wooden pieces. These doorways
are rather small according to modern standards, as is usual in
such pueblos. Measurements averaged eighteen by thirty-six inches
for those openings complete enough to measure.

Plaster. The plaster yet adhered to the interior of many of these
walls. It was of sandy adobe smeared on with the hand and varying in
thickness from an eighth of an inch to an inch. The plaster on the south
side of Room 1 was especially well-preserved and showed four distinct
smoke-blackened layers, each exhibiting many finger and hand impressions.
As far as could be ascertained from the fragments of plaster

preserved, there was no decoration or coloring on these interiors. The
plaster of certain of the kivas was quite otherwise, as will be mentioned
in the description of those structures.

Floors. The floors were of hard-packed but unburned adobe
throughout, varied in some instances, such as Room 14, with slabs or
scales of carbonaceous shale, gathered presumably from the outcroppings
in the cliff immediately behind the ruin. The sandy character of
the adobe floors in some cases rendered them difficult of perception and
of distinction from the hard-packed sandy aeolian fill and adobe washed
from the walls, which in each case constituted the layer immediately
upon the floor. Several floor layers were detected in some of the rooms,
as in Rooms 8, 9 and 10, where two successive floor levels were found,
one laid directly upon the other at an interval of about three inches.
The floors in the kivas presented a different problem.

Roofs. The roofs of the Pueblo II structure were of the usual
pueblo type, supported on vigas averaging about eight inches through.
Fragments of some of these were found in place. In Room 4, a large
section of the roof was found intact, fallen, after the breaking of the
central viga running in an east-west direction, upon a quantity of
debris which had collected in the room before the collapse (Plate V).

Cross members of piñon and juniper, averaging three inches in
diameter, had been laid at right angles to the viga, i. e., north and south
in this case, and at intervals of a foot. At right angles to these last
and covering the entire surface, were split slabs or slivers of juniper.
On top of these, and again at right angles, that is, parallel with the
piñon cross members, was a matting of, in this case, horsetail reed
(Equisetum) bound together so as to form a compact whole by twisted
strands of yucca fibre every six inches along their length. On this last
was placed, evidently, a final covering of rubble, leaves, brush and adobe.

It must be mentioned in this connection that from the prints of
the roof covering from other rooms, the construction was essentially
the same but the horsetail reed was varied with sacaton grass bound
together in the same way. Also, the primary covering of juniper slabs
did not seem to be constant, although it also occurred in Room 1.
Prints of the roof preserved in the adobe lumps from Rooms 9 and 16
show that fragments of matting, and occasionally fragments of basketry,
and even of fabric, were used either to patch holes in the roof
or to supplement the reed cover.

Cists and Bins. A limited number of cists and bins were encountered
in several of the rooms in the south end of the pueblo. Room 19
contained three such bins set immediately on the floor and outlined by
sandstone slabs (Plate IIIa). These measured a foot in each diameter
and about six inches deep, with the side toward the center of the room

made at an intentional angle. The cracks between the stones were filled
with an abundance of adobe plaster. No evidence of fire was present.

Room 17, adjoining, contained a cist in its southeastern corner, as
did also Room 16 in its southeastern corner. These cists were in each
case two feet in diameter and two and a half feet deep. They were
supplied with an adobe coating which differentiated them from the
adobe floor surrounding and were lined with adobe plaster to about one
half their depth. Their use is problematical insomuch as they were not
furnished with any grass or matting lining which might indicate storage
cists. The cists in the kivas were of a different nature.

Fireplaces. Fireplaces were found in several of the rooms, being
located only in those which were on the outer edges of the pueblo where
the structure was very obviously of a single story. Rooms 9, 14, and
16 were furnished with firepits, these being of two distinct types. That
which occurred in Room 14 represents perhaps the most usual type.
This is a rectangular depression, ten by twelve inches, let into the floor
to a depth of four inches and outlined with four slabs on edge. Two
broken manos, projecting in from opposing corners of the rectangle,
served evidently as pot rests. The fire pits in Rooms 9 and 16 were
centrally located and made of adobe directly in the adobe floor. These
were circular, some fifteen inches in diameter and eight inches deep.
A low coping of adobe separated them from the adobe floor as in the
case of the adobe cists mentioned above.

Special Structures. Under the head of special structural features
in the Pueblo II unit may be grouped certain innovations such as the
use of polishing and sharpening stones built directly into the wall, frequent
use of trough metates built in the wall, and two examples of
protruding stones beneath doorways used as convenient steps for entrance
and exit. On the north wall of Room 1 was a large sandstone
piece which had evidently been used for sharpening of bone implements
and possibly for those of stone also. The lintel of a doorway between
Rooms 8 and 9 had evidently been used as a sharpening medium for
stone implements with broad-bladed or broad-bitted cutting edges.
Steps or projecting stones were noted on the west side of Room 7 and on
the east side of Room 10 to accommodate the doorway between these
two rooms. Metates were used liberally as building material, and in at
least two instances may have served as wall receptacles.