University of Virginia Library

Disposal of the Dead in the Chaco

Ever since the first excavations were begun in Chaco ruins, archaeologists
have wondered at the amazing dearth of burials there. The
canyon was the home of thousands of people at one time, as is proved
by the number of rooms of the same building date in the large pueblos,
and an archaeologist acquainted with the burial customs of the northern
prehistoric Southwestern Pueblo people would expect to find thousands
of graves. Instead, entire seasons have passed without the uncovering
of a single skeleton, and the location of sixteen at Tseh So in 1936,
fragmentary as they were, was reason for rejoicing.

As early as Jackson's expedition a skull was taken from a stratum
sixteen feet below the surface near Pueblo del Arroyo.[3] At this point the
profile of the canyon showed the ancient river bed, since filled, and "an
undulating stratum of broken pottery, flint-chippings, and small bones
firmly embedded in a coarse gravelly deposit" which represented "the
ancient surface of the grounds about the pueblo, and was probably the
sloping bank of the stream, which during the occupancy of the pueblo
may have been a considerable river. Since the desertion of this region
the old bed has become filled to the depth of at least fourteen feet, and
through this the arroyo has made its present channel. A system of
thorough excavation would undoubtedly reveal many interesting things
and is probably the only method by which anything satisfactory will
ever be learned of the industrious people who once filled this narrow
valley."[4]

During the August, 1936, session in the Chaco, the University dug
a trench south of Chetro Ketl, with two main objects in view: (1) to
explore the possibility of a burial ground deep below the present surface
of the canyon, and (2) to ascertain some indications of the precise
profile of the landscape between Chetro Ketl and the present arroyo.
No burials were found, but dated erosion surfaces show that many a
Chaco burial ground could be so well covered with silt deposits, sixteen
feet above the old surface at this point, that even if indications of it
were found by trenching, a major excavation project would be required
to remove the skeletons.[5] Other evidences of the deep fill which has
covered the Chaco floor since the time burials would have been interred
into it was the fourteen-foot fill found at the back wall of Chetro Ketl,[6]
the twelve-foot fill observed in 1936 over a pit house cut in half by a
break of the arroyo bank below Shabik'eschee Village, the twelve-foot
fill observed by Judd in 1922 above a pit house cut in half by falling
arroyo banks one mile east of Pueblo Bonito,[7] and the two to six-foot
fill around the low mound on which Pueblo Bonito itself was built as
indicated by Judd's three trenches cut to a depth of twelve feet.[8] Whatever
burials may have been made in the canyon floor must await uncovering
by teams and scrapers or by another period of erosion.

To the southwest of Chaco Canyon but in the Chaco culture district,
a cemetery was pilfered a few years ago by the Navajos and the
vessels sold to a trader. The pottery indicated its period as Pueblo III
and possibly as Pueblo II, as well. No large ruin was near, but potsherd
areas were found on the surfaces of low mounds near the burials.

The principal reason for supposing that the ancient people of the
Chaco buried their dead in cemeteries on the canyon floor is that this
was the general custom for the majority of people in the northern part
of the Pueblo area. There is evidence, however, that more than one
type of burial was made in the Chaco.

Pepper removed about 30 skeletons from a mound near Peñasco
Blanco and a mound just south of the gap which opens out from the
Chaco south and west of Pueblo Bonito.[9] These may have represented
any period from Pueblo I to Pueblo III. He also removed a few burials
from the room fills of Pueblo Bonito,[10] and Judd uncovered seventy-one
burials in four rooms of the same village.[11] Most of Judd's burials were
disturbed and the bones mixed, the vessels overturned and often broken.

He suggests prehistoric grave robbery as the motive for this vandalism;
the burials found undisturbed by Pepper were rich in turquoise,
and turquoise was as valuable to prehistoric thieves as diamonds
to those of today. Both Judd's and Pepper's series are now in the
National Museum at Washington.[12]

A series of thirteen skeletons from Chetro Ketl, Talus Unit No. 1,[13]
Rinconada, and near Una Vida were removed by the University of New
Mexico and the School of American Research before 1936; they are at
present in the Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe.[14] Of these, all but
two came from rooms. One was found in the refuse dump of Chetro
Ketl,[15] and one was discovered partly washed out from its position beneath
the edge of a large boulder of the talus slope about one-half mile
east of Una Vida. Both the latter were flexed and accompanied by
offerings, and most of those from Pueblo Bonito and from Chetro Ketl
appear to have been flexed, although a few were extended and many
were so badly disturbed as to give no indication of their original position.
Almost all were accompanied by mortuary offerings of pottery,
and many had jewelry of turquoise and of shell beads, turquoise inlay,
and jet, shell, and pink stone carved into small animals (perhaps
fetishes). Morris found most of the Aztec Ruin burials flexed, wrapped
with matting, accompanied with pottery, and frequently disturbed.
With Judd, he suggests ancient grave robberies as the cause.[16]

Pepper noted a number of burials of children beneath the floor
of rooms in Pueblo Bonito and concluded that this "must have been a
custom among the people who inhabited this pueblo."[17]

This gives six types of burials: burials in the valley floor, burials
in mounds, burials in room fills, burials in refuse heaps, burials beneath
the boulders of talus slopes, and child burials beneath room
floors. There are two other possibilities to be considered in the disposal
of the Chaco dead, and those are that cremation and perhaps cannibalism
were practised.

Pepper found "a number of worked human bones"[18] in one room
of Pueblo Bonito and cracked and calcined bones in another.[19] In one
room of Peñasco Blanco he uncovered calcined bones which appeared to
have been split open, and he concluded that these people may have

eaten human flesh occasionally either for religious purposes or because
they were starving.

Hewett referred to the ash and charcoal filling the vaults of the
great kiva of Chetro Ketl, but he found no identifiable bones there. He
suggests that the vaults are "large enough to have served for the roasting
of a whole buffalo, and they would have served perfectly for the
incineration of the dead."[20] There is no reason to suppose that they
used these vaults for the cremation of the dead, however, except that
their size would have been adequate, that some burned human bones
had been found in the other ruins, and that inhumations are scarce.
The possibility that burial grounds have been deeply covered with
drift since the period of prhistoric occupation of the pueblo has been
discussed, and it seems that bones from burials which must have been
disturbed when new graves were made, or which were disturbed at
one time or another by thieves, might have been worked and utilized,
or cracked open and burned. Ceremonial cannibalism and hunger remain
as alternative explanations, but in the district where almost
every burial uncovered shows disturbance in ancient times, the scattering
of human bones and their occasional use scarcely seems to require
those explanations. Cremation was the custom for southern Arizona,
but inhumation was customary for the northern area, in spite of a few
rare evidences of cremation reported from Hawikuh and the Jeddito
district[21] and from around Flagstaff, where Hohokam dwellings and
shards indicate strong influence from the South.[22]

The sixteen burials removed from Tseh So and from the one room
opened in the adjoining ruin, Mound 51, were all from room fills, with
the exception of one infant interred just above a Pueblo I wall and
later covered by the Pueblo II wall of the western edge of the site. All
of the five Pueblo I burials had been so disturbed that the original
position of the body could not be ascertained. Of the eleven burials of
Pueblo II from the two sites, the group of seven adult and one adolescent
skeleton showed five flexed, one extended, and three too disturbed
to indicate original position. Of the three infants, two were extended,
and one too disturbed for data.

On the basis of what is known concerning Chaco burials at present,
we can conclude that adult bodies were usually flexed but frequently
extended for inhumation in open cemeteries or in room fills,
and that occasionally they were placed along the talus slopes or in a
refuse mound. Infants were frequently buried extended, although the
number observed is too small to indicate what the general custom may

have been. They were placed in room fills or beneath the floor of a
room. Cremation for disposal of the dead or for preparation of the
body for ceremonial or for simple cannibalism may have occurred, but
we are yet without data to substantiate such a theory.