Aztec Ruins Administrative History

1918: THE BIG THRUST

Early in the spring of 1918, in anticipation of resumption of excavations at the West Ruin, J.M. Jackson, secretary of the San Juan Council of Defense, and Hunter S. Moles, San Juan County agricultural agent, lodged a protest with the American Museum over the $2.50 daily wage that was being paid laborers at the site. It was claimed that this wage, higher than what was offered elsewhere locally, lured farm hands away from activities, such as haying, which were essential to the war effort. Jackson suggested that outside help be brought in to do the job at Aztec Ruin. [53] El Palacio, organ of the Museum of New Mexico, reported: "The American Museum of Natural History, in charge of excavation and reconstruction work at Aztec, San Juan county, has given orders that all staff members and employees must assist in farm work in the San Juan valley whenever their assistance is needed." [54] Morris argued that the wages he paid were in line with current practice. With the fruit corp damaged by one of the recurrent early frosts, he regarded the museum payroll to 25 men as vital to the regional economy. [55]

Without consulting Morris, the museum provided him a field assistant for the season. This was B. Talbot Babbitt Hyde. As young men in the late nineteenth century, he and his brother, Frederick, funded Wetherill work in Grand Gulch, Utah, which first recognized the Basketmakers, and a four-year effort at Pueblo Bonito. The collections from both endeavors went to the American Museum of Natural History. In 1918, Talbot retired from business and became an eager volunteer worker at the museum. Since he had no field training in archeology, Wissler suggested to museum president Henry Fairfield Osborn that Hyde be allowed to spend the summer at Aztec Ruin. His travel expenses and maintenance could come out of project funds. [56]

Arriving in late June, Hyde and his wife set up housekeeping in a large, white, walled tent placed in the lee of the unexcavated West Wing. Meanwhile, Morris moved into a newly erected frame shed east of the courtyard Kiva E (see Figure 3.13). This structure was to provide storage and office space as well as temporary living quarters for the field director.

At first, Hyde was enthusiastic about what he observed at Aztec and took it upon himself to dispatch detailed reports to Wissler and Osborn. He recounted how Morris cleverly handled the fracas over using local farm labor in time of war by hiring the protesting sheriff's son and how his pick of a number of applicants permitted assembling a top-notch labor force. Hyde also supplied details that are missing from other records about the ruin, dimensions of its chambers and their condition, and how the compound was being worked. He stated that at the end of July, 2,500 cubic yards of earth and rock fill already had been removed to a dump by three teams of horses and wagons. This laborious aspect of the project could be eliminated, he remarked, if only the museum acquired ownership of the land. The present owner understandably did not want spoil dirt deposited on planted fields adjacent to the house block. As to repair of the prehistoric edifice, Hyde noted that the largest budget item to that point was $500 for a train car of cement to be used in resetting masonry. [57]

The North Wing of the Anasazi pueblo, making up about half the total building mass and up to 29 feet in depth in places, was the arena of the season's attention. At the end of the effort, Morris described the excavation as the most difficult of his experience. [58] The earth's crust was as hard as the masonry stones, and beneath it was a mass of stone, fallen timbers, and dust in which was blended a filthy amalgam of decayed and desiccated snakes, badgers, and rats. Worse of all was the miserable condition of bulging, cracking, and distorted walls. All the unpleasant fill had to be removed in order to reach floor level of the first story. After lifting much of it in two or three stages, some 6,500 cubic yards of material were hauled away. Other unwanted dirt and rocks were shoveled into wheelbarrows to be dumped at the outer walls of the structure. [59]

The architecture of the North Wing resembled that of the East Wing. There was the added interest of a series of lower rooms with intact ceilings, those broken into by early settlers, and some plastered walls with painted dados (see Figure 3.21). Rooms were stacked to three stories in places and tiered so that as many as possible could benefit from the solar warmth provided by a southern exposure. Although remodeling suggesting reuse was evident in portions of the North Wing, Morris thought that the northeast corner of the compound had been abandoned and cleared of all furnishings long before Chaco inhabitants vacated the rest of the village. [60] Kivas were of both Chaco and Mesa Verde style.

Figure 3.21. Intact aboriginal ceiling in the West Ruin as seen from the floor.

Specimens were comparable to those of the previous summer. In a letter of December 6, 1918, Morris wrote Wissler that although the specimen array was less than in 1917, special or fragile articles were more plentiful. [61] Unusual objects were enormous stone hammers weighing as much as 38 1/2 pounds, cotton cloth, coiled and plaited baskets, large mats of plaited rushes, bow fragments, painted wooden altar equipment, and a cradle board with withes and reed stems attached. Associated pottery indicated that burials found on or below floors were those of Mesa Verdians.

With the original appropriation of $5,000 about to be exhausted, in August a supplemental $5,000 was authorized by Robert Lowie, acting curator of anthropology, to carry work into December. Because he felt Morris was sure to be drafted into military service and monies would be curtailed due to the war, it was Wissler's plan to push concerted efforts this season. [62]

The work accomplished in 1918 included clearing 12 rooms in the South Wing, 48 rooms in the North Wing, and four kivas. Rooms 97 and 98 at the exterior of the northeast corner, discovered by Hyde, also were cleaned out (see Figure 3.11). Since "archaic" (Basketmaker III-Pueblo I?) pottery was found in them, they are suspected of having been left from a settlement there before erection of the great house. [63] It was estimated by the end of the season of 1918 that half of the West Ruin was excavated. The first paper of volume 26 of the Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, devoted to the Aztec Ruin project, was in press.

During the summer, friction developed between Morris, the young Western professional, and Hyde, the older Eastern amateur. Morris complained that his assistant was impractical. Hyde's suggestion that some specimens be left in situ as museum exhibits rankled Morris. [64] Wissler agreed that leaving certain floors as an open exhibit would be unwise. [65] Even through Hyde had spent his career in the commercial world, Morris could not bring himself to delegate aspects of the business side of the operations to him. For his part, Hyde carried out supplementary field duties and tried to learn archeological techniques. He did not approve of Morris's methods or what he considered outright procrastination in regard to acquisition of the property for the museum.

Hyde was upset that vandals had broken into the restored kiva and sawed into some of its roof beams. Wooden lintels had been pulled from other rooms. He urged employment of a full-time caretaker, inferring that Morris was unable to control the situation and suggesting that sale of booklets about the ruins and entrance fees for the growing number of visitors could help recoup the expenditure. Morris doubted that funds would be forthcoming for a resident caretaker. Hyde deplored lack of action on fencing the site. This was a need Morris had recognized from the beginning explorations, but he had been unable to persuade the museum to appropriate the money. In 1918, he planned to sell unused cement at the end of the summer to finance the work. If that did not meet the cost, he would draw upon payments made by the county for spoil dirt from the excavations dumped into the rutty road leading to the ruins. [66]

By the end of the year, Morris was ready to settle down to writing reports free of charge and to contemplate the site's development. [67] He wrote Wissler, "My interest in it is the same as if I were doing it upon my own initiative, and with my own funds. Therefore, as far as the future is concerned, you may depend upon me to the limit of my powers." [68] Morris's formal public assessment of the project was that the exploration of the Aztec Ruin eventually would enable researchers to make the most thorough and detailed reconstruction of the material culture of the prehistoric Pueblos than from any other known Southwestern ruin. [69]

To his mentor, Nels Nelson, Morris added a less academic observation: "The court of the ruin is a glare of ice at night, and a veritable pond in the day time. The house we built in it is my present habitation, and I may find it afloat some day." [70]