Kiva 1 (See Plate VIII and Fig. 2a)
Kiva 1 is located to the east of Rooms 7 and 8, and to the south of
Rooms 3 and 5. The enclosure surrounding this kiva is designated as
Room 12. The kiva proper is nine and one-half feet in diameter and
the same distance in depth, with a bench running around its circumference
six feet from the floor level and seventeen inches wide. Kiva 1
was provided with a southern extension in the form of a platform two
feet by four feet ten inches in dimensions, and at a depth of four
feet from the surface. Underneath this platform runs the ventilator
shaft, fourteen by eighteen inches in dimensions from its entrance or
opening in the kiva, below the edge of the platform, to its exit at the
surface through a chimney of masonry a foot square immediately to
the south of the platform extension. This ventilator shaft was covered
over in its horizontal extension under the platform with overturned
metates supported on wooden cross members which are still in place.
At its end on the kiva floor it was also provided with wooden uprights
plastered in with adobe on each side of the opening to form a rounded
frame. This rounded framework on the floor of the kiva opens out onto
a small semi-circular platform, a foot by two feet in width, and some
three inches high, placed upon the kiva floor as a sort of threshold for
the ventilator entrance. This small platform just mentioned, and the
opening to the ventilator shaft, were separated from the rest of the
kiva by a low wall of masonry eighteen inches high, which ran in a
semi-circular direction from the wall on the one side of the ventilator
shaft to the wall on the other. This last named partition wall served
as a fire screen for the fire pit directly behind it to the north. However,
it is most unusual to find the fire screen or partition wall joining
the walls of the kiva both to the east and to the west. The fire pit
immediately to the north of this screen wall is still slightly to the south
of the center of the kiva. It was well made, sunk into the kiva floor,
lined with slabs of sandstone, and was well filled with ash when found.
A small hole three inches in diameter, eighteen inches east of this fire
pit, may have been the sipapu. No other depression which might have
been used for this purpose is in evidence.
The shard evidence showed the Escavada, Exuberant Corrugated,
and Gallup combination predominating, as was true in the rooms. Of
several hundred shards pried from the plaster of the walls, Escavada
ran as high as 80 per cent, Lino and Red Mesa were next, with Gallup
running a poor last.
A most interesting situation was found on the north side of Kiva 1
where a large section of the kiva was cracking and apparently sinking
into a soft space beneath, along with the north wall. A small test hole,
dug through the side of the kiva in this direction, produced large numbers
of Red Mesa shards, as might have been expected. A test hole dug
through the floor of the kiva produced Lino gray ware.
Evidently Kiva 1 had been excavated in Pueblo II times down
through, or at least to the edge of, the original Pueblo I mound and
possibly extended into the Basket Maker levels. The caving observed
on the northern side of Kiva 1 may indicate a subsequent settling or
decaying out of large volumes of animal and vegetable matter in the
Pueblo I structure on that side.
