Aztec Ruins Administrative History

1917: FIRST FULL-SCALE EXCAVATION
(continued)

One of the most significant contributions to a fuller knowledge of Anasazi material culture was an incredible assortment of perishable goods seldom reclaimed from sites situated in the open. Ten to 15 feet of vegetable substance filled some rooms (see Figure 3.20). [45] The collapse of construction rubble and a very dry environment had served to cap and preserve remains of clothing. In this general category were cotton textile fragments of three different weaves, some bearing red bands; leather scraps, thongs, and bags; feather cloth on a yucca cordage base; sandals of two varieties in sizes ranging from those suitable for children to those for adults; and leather moccasins for an infant. Among woven articles also were rush bags and others formed of cornhusks stuffed into a yucca cordage backing; sturdy coiled and plaited baskets and plaques; headbands or tumplines of woven yucca fiber; braided fiber rings of several sizes; twisted and braided cordage; and pot rests of cedar bark, cornhusks, grass, twigs, or plaited yucca. Wooden artifacts included reed arrows, some with wood foreshafts, feather binding, and plaited bands; digging sticks; prayer sticks with the end occasionally flattened into snake heads; hoops for undetermined uses; painted bark; shaped wooden slabs and cylinders; and flower-like ceremonial objects. Grass ropes; rush and willow matting; reed-stem cigarettes; yucca needles; unfired clay plugs used to stopper ceramic jars; macaw feathers and skeletons from tropical Mexico; deer or antelope hoof rattles hung on yucca cord; corn-cob darts; and yucca or grass-stem hair brushes are the general miscellany left from daily life.

Figure 3.20. A pile of cornhusks found in an unidentified East Wing room.

Other remains of a perishable nature, which revealed much about aboriginal life on the Animas, were caches in some rooms of raw materials needed for the production of necessary goods. These stores included slabs of cottonwood stacked in a corner, cedar bark for ceiling insulation, bundles of leaves of corn plants, and piles of potter's clay. Diggers also recovered many examples of foodstuffs. They took an estimated 200 bushels of loose corn from Room 41. Brown beans, walnut shells, squash and gourd rind, Mormon tea, and unidentified plants that might have been used for seasonings were other clues to Anasazi diet. Rodents confused the archeological record by bringing modern cherry, apricot, and peach pits into the ruin from neighboring orchards. Those fruits, unknown to the Anasazi, were introduced into the New World by the invading Spaniards of the sixteenth century.

Remains of animals and birds used for food, hides, feathers, and bone were coyote, gray wolf, deer, beaver, mountain goat, antelope, bobcat, hawk, eagle, and other smaller birds. A special find showed that tropical macaws had been traded north from Mexico.

Human burials, in some cases comprising the remains of an unknown number of individuals, were exposed in 1917. Persons of both sexes and all ages were represented. Interments in Room 52 were those of at least 15 children and infants. Some bodies were wrapped in matting and extended on floor or refuse-covered surfaces of rooms, where in time they were drifted over with other trash or detritus resulting from wall or ceiling deterioration. On occasion, bodies were nestled into shallow depressions scooped into unconsolidated household rubbish. Disturbance by rodents or other small animals scattered limb bones, vertebrae, and skulls.

Most burials were accompanied by some funerary goods. Burial 16 from Room 41 produced 119 catalogued specimens. [46] Curators assigned many of these items a lot number because of their small size or similarity, making the actual artifact count considerably larger. Typical articles placed as offerings were pottery, jewelry, and basketry. Burial 16 also was accompanied by a pile of 200 arrowpoints. Since all grave pottery recovered in 1917 was of Mesa Verde affiliation, Morris felt his emerging theory of a two-stage occupation of Aztec Ruin was verified. He suggested that rooms of the great house abandoned by Chacoans were converted into sepulchers by Anasazi moving southward out of the Mesa Verde region to reoccupy the West Ruin.

Even with an insatiable taste for specimens, Morris was satisfied with the artifact returns. Six weeks before field work was suspended in 1917, he wrote Pliny Earle Goddard, curator of ethnology at American Museum of Natural History, "I think you will agree that some of the specimens are among the finest ever brought from the Southwest, and I look forward to the day when the pick of them will have an honor place in the Southwest Hall." [47]

Meanwhile, Morris's desire to dig wherever and whenever possible remained undiminished. After finding a skull and some specimens in a cornfield near the West Ruin, he shot off an appeal to Wissler for authorization to engage in some extra-curricular shoveling. "There are many graves beneath the fields which Mr. Abrams has in cultivation," he wrote, "and one who knows what to look for can locate many of them when the ground is being plowed. Have I your permission to spend a few dollars exploring such burial places as come to light from time to time?" [48] After approval was granted, specimens from 12 sites in the immediate vicinity, but generally not on the monument preserve, were included with the West Ruin collections (see Table 13.1). [49]

The fact that two pieces of pottery in Morris's personal collection at the time of his death came from sites in the environs of Aztec Ruins shows either that additional digging was done or a division of artifacts recovered when he was digging under Wissler's authorization had occurred. [50] In the catalogue to the collection, he described how before sunrise on a Sunday morning he dug a trench in an aboriginal rubbish heap on the Farmer ranch and hit a large, thick-walled corrugated jar and a Mesa Verde mug associated with the skeleton of an adult. The circumstance of most interest to Morris was that the grave pit was roofed, and the vessels had been placed on top of it. This was not a usual burial practice among the Anasazi. [51]

At the end of work in the fall of 1917, Morris felt threatened by the military draft brought on by the outbreak of World War I. Therefore, he spent time cleaning up details and shipping specimens to New York so that operations could be shut down for the duration. On October 25, Morris notified Wissler that, because his mother had sent an appeal to the governor of New Mexico for deferment of her only child and sole support, he had been freed for the present from the obligation to serve in the armed forces. [52] With total expenditures for the season reaching $6926.19, Morris requested another small appropriation in order to fence the site to keep vandals and stock out of the diggings. This request was denied. In December, Morris went East to personally unpack his haul and bask in praise from the museum hierarchy.