Aztec Ruins Administrative History

1921: YEAR OF SUBSTANTIATED CULTURAL THEORIES AND THE GREAT KIVA

As soon as funds were available in February, work commenced on the Great Kiva (see Figure 3.23). Morris figured that excavation and repair of the structure would take $600 from an annual appropriation of $4,800. [90] Despite cold weather and partially frozen ground, he pushed his crew so that by the end of the month 10 ground-level rooms of a concentric tier of 15 arc-shaped rooms (Rooms 160 through 173) around the upper limit of the kiva were opened and about three-fourths of the subterranean kiva itself was bared. A month later, job completed, Morris already was at work on his report (see Figure 3.24). It was published that same year. [91] A personal race had been won.

Figure 3.23. Excavation of the Great Kiva, 1921.

Figure 3.24. Excavated Great Kiva in 1921, showing floor features. Above, view to south; below, view to north.

In addition to the size of the Great Kiva, 48 feet in interior diameter, features that differed from the clan kivas included the 15 encircling surface rooms. All had doorways opening to the courtyard. The largest room on the north axis was enriched with a raised square platform, which Morris called an altar. The rooms were connected to the subterranean chamber by wooden rungs inset vertically into the kiva's masonry wall. A bench wrapped around the lower wall of the kiva. On the floor of the chamber were outlines of two large rectangular vaults that originally might have been covered with planks to make foot drums. Between them was a squared fire hearth. Forming a square at the perimeters of the circular floor space were the stubs of four squared masonry columns, which had supported a log roof over the kiva and its attached rooms. Horizontal layers of small poles were embedded in the columns to reduce their rigidity. During the interval when these features were puzzling the crew because of their unusualness, Morris spent three weeks heading a repair crew at Pueblo Bonito. That gave him the chance to reassure himself that his work at Aztec was correct.

Excavations revealed the beginning, middle, and end of the Aztec Great Kiva. It was sunk into a trashy stratum covering a surface in the south part of the central courtyard, which was peppered with fragments of Chaco Black-on-White pottery. After having functioned for a time as a community sanctuary, the Great Kiva fell into disrepair and collected drifts of trash. Subsequently, the Great Kiva was refurbished and put back into use. Then, final usefulness of the building ended in an outburst of flames that consumed its mighty roof. Morris read this evidence from the ground as an erection of the Great Kiva and its use by Chacoans, a period of abandonment, followed by reuse by Mesa Verdians until a conflagration brought the structure down.

Substantiation for this scenario of phased occupation of the Aztec Ruin came by chance. In the past, Morris and Wissler walked over the southwest corner of the courtyard and decided it was a plot that did not warrant testing. To pass the time in the winter of 1921 while waiting for excavation of the Great Kiva to begin, Morris casually began to shovel there. What he soon discovered were two kivas, one superimposed over the other. The top of the lower unit was eight feet below the courtyard surface. Debris mantling the upper chamber, or Kiva P, contained Mesa Verde pottery fragments. Nearby dwelling rooms produced identical types. The lower and larger kiva, designated Kiva Q, also had been the depository for a large concentration of discarded material goods. Stone scrapers, bone awls, bone tubes, sandstone pot covers, stone skinning knives, worked gilsonite, chipped knife blades, arrowpoints, a flint drill, bone and stone pendants, shell beads, a carved shell disc, turquoise inlay fragments, and yellow pigment came from the fill. What was most electrifying, however, was the relative abundance of the rare Chaco pottery. Morris took 25 complete or partial black-on-white bowls, four black-on-white dippers, one black-on-white vase, one human effigy, one quadruped effigy, and a number of pieces of broken effigies of Chaco-style ceramics from this structure. [92] Because there were no Mesa Verde ceramics mixed in with this deposit and Kiva Q was situated beneath Kiva P, Morris was certain that he had the most indisputable evidence thus far encountered for his hypothesized sequence of occupation. It had been four years in coming.

Wissler responded to this bit of news, as he replied, "I am quite pleased with your recent pottery find where two time periods in the history of the ruin seem to be differentiated. I hope you will make the most of this discovery." [93] Of that, there was no doubt.

While enjoying the satisfaction of this accidental discovery, Morris made a second surprising find diagonally across the courtyard at the juncture of the East and North wings. Work in 1917 in this area had not gone beneath the hard-packed surface. In the spring of 1921, Morris stumbled onto another refuse-filled kiva [Kiva R?] under four feet of detritus there. It was crammed with potsherds representing what he considered the richest ceramic complex he had ever seen. Chaco types predominated, but in addition, there were variants new to Aztec and some trade pottery. To Morris, an earthenware effigy of a human male with well developed genitals and lines representing sandal ties on one foot clinched the Chaco affiliation of the deposit. [94]

In retrospect, it now appears that the room Morris found may have been a pithouse rather than a ceremonial room. He described it as a pit dug into the earth and plastered, with no bench or pillars. Perhaps after its abandonment, it had become a dumping place for later trash. The finding of this buried construction and that deeper one at the opposite corner of the pueblo showed Morris that from the beginning of explorations at Aztec Ruin he should have looked for superimposition in the courtyard. [95] To rectify this oversight, he immediately dug test pits in other parts of the courtyard fill. He found that at least three feet of deposition had accumulated in some sectors. However, at the time he did not happen upon any further constructions. Diagnostic potsherds scattered at lowest depths further convinced the young archeologist that Chacoans had been there first and for a considerable interval. [96]

Although Morris sought an additional $100 to stabilize the earthen walls, the second structure bolstering his reconstruction of prehistory of Aztec Ruin is obscured beneath the court. [97]

Wissler rationalized over the events of the spring as he mused to Morris, "It seems rather curious that we should have begun at just the wrong end of this ruin, but perhaps it is best as it is because we shall have worked over the whole in anticipation of the solution." [98]

The good fortune of the season of 1921 continued with the finding of Burial 83 in Room 178, the sixth room south from the northwest corner of the compound. [99] An adult male more than six feet tall, an unusual height among the short-statured Anasazi, was laid out in a shallow pit in the floor. The body was wrapped in feather cloth and rush matting. A tightly-woven, coiled basketry plaque three feet in diameter, with colored fibers and a decorative border of flecks of selenite, covered the remains. Morris called it a shield. A similar piece of basketry was taken from one of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings by early explorers. That underscored the probable cultural affiliation of the Aztec deceased. Although they generally would be regarded now as utilitarian digging or game sticks, three wooden shafts suggested swords to Morris. He saw stone tools with wooden handles as weapons. A number of examples of pottery, basketry, jewelry, and stone implements were placed as offerings about the body. Obviously, the man in Burial 83 was someone important in the village. When Morris colorfully described him as a giant warrior, he made good newspaper copy for reporters, who in the early 1920s had a propensity for sensationalism when discussing the unfamiliar civilizations of the Wild West.

From the outset of their association, Wissler continually urged his young protege to publish his field work and cultural interpretations in order to establish his authority in Southwestern archeology. After the important pottery finds of the spring of 1921, he promoted an immediate ceramic analysis to support Morris's solidifying ideas of the progression from Basketmaker to classic Anasazi. For Morris, digging was not only pleasurable but therapeutic; he was easily tempted to put his foot to the shovel, while his sketchy handwritten excavation notes grew cold. Nevertheless with reluctance, Morris soon followed Wissler's advice to write his version of the chronology of the prehistoric San Juan area. Because he fully intended to undertake an in-depth ceramic study at some future date, pottery was treated superficially. Aztec Ruin was important to the temporal thesis he put forth. The pueblo was presented as the type site for the climatic stage of Anasazi cultural evolution characterized by great communal houses sheltering many families and regional craft specialization. [100]

Morris showed Kivas N and O in the West Wing, R and S in the court off the East Wing, J, K, and L in the North Wing, and M in the court just north of the southeast corner as excavated since 1918 on a revised site map of 1921. [101] Nine other kivas were indicated but not cleared. Six of them were in the partially exposed West Wing. Presently, all of the subterranean chambers in the court, with the exception of Kiva E and the Great Kiva, are backfilled for preservation purposes and to simplify interpretation for visitors. The excavated kivas contained a mix of Chaco and Mesa Verde attributes, the latter being the more numerous. Kiva K was placed by Mesa Verde remodelers as a circular construction within a rectangular room only about 12 by 14 feet. The room originally was built by Chacoans. The small size of the kiva and recovered potsherds of what Morris believed was a decadent Mesa Verde style were his evidence that the kiva was used at the final period of occupation. According to Morris's viewpoint, the village population at that time dwindled to a few families, and demoralized potters no longer maintained their former high standards.

The site map of 1921 provides additional information. It shows that 26 rooms in the portion of the compound where the North and West wings merge were excavated. What remained untouched was much of the southwest corner of the compound, a string of cobblestone units extending to the east, and a scattering of other cobblestones dwellings and kivas at the western side of the great house referred to by Morris as the Annex. Morris's estimate in 1920 of 175 unexcavated rooms appears to be too high.