THE SEDENTARY HOHOKAM

Fig. 45—Hohokam carved stone vessel of the Colonial period. (Courtesy Arizona State Museum.)

Fig. 46—Hohokam ornaments of carved shell. (Courtesy National Park Service.)

Shell was very widely used. A few needles made of shell have been found, but this was apparently not considered a utilitarian material and it was most often used in the manufacture of ornaments. Shell beads and pendants continued to be used, and many bracelets were made. These were made of Glycymeris shells which are nearly circular and, when cut in cross-section, provide a suitable arm band. Carving did not reach its peak until the following period, but fine bracelets were produced. Birds, snakes, frogs, and geometric forms furnished the designs. The most frequent motif is a bird-and-snake combination. The snake’s head is in the bird’s mouth and the body of the snake forms the band. This quite probably had some special ceremonial significance. Carved rings, which first appeared at this time, are usually in the form of snakes. They were never as abundant as bracelets. There was some mosaic work with shell, but this art did not fully develop until later. Birds and snakes, often in combination, were the usual subjects for carving on bone.

During the Sedentary period, which lasted from about 900 to 1200 A. D. there was some withdrawal from the outlying districts and a greater concentration of population in a smaller area, although there was also some northward extension of theculture. There was some regional specialization during the latter part of the period, for the inhabitants of the upper or eastern portion of the Gila Basin developed somewhat differently from those of the central area. This was possibly the result of the influence of Pueblo people who lived in the Tonto Basin about one hundred miles to the northwest, and it presaged the changes which were to occur in the next period when some of these people moved into the Hohokam area, bringing with them their distinctive culture.

Houses in the main area were roughly rectangular in outline, but the ends were somewhat rounded and the sides slightly convex. Floors were encircled by low, mud rims, six inches or less in height, which were probably designed to keep water out of the houses. Some had parallel-sided entrance ways, but others had a bulbous vestibule with a low step at the end. Late in the period, in the eastern part of the Gila Basin, there were some rectangular surface houses with walls of adobe, containing sporadic stones, over a pole framework. In some cases, villages were enclosed by walls and are referred to ascompounds. This name is taken from the term which is applied to the walled or fenced enclosure of a house or factory in the orient.

The irrigation system was enlarged and improved. Ball courts were still being built but they seem to have been considerably reduced in size by the end of the period. They were oriented north and south andthe ends were closed. One interesting find, made in a Sedentary site with an estimated date of 1100 A. D., was a rubber ball buried in a jar.[52]Analysis showed the rubber to be of American origin, unvulcanized and unrefined. There is no way of proving that this ball was used in playing the game for which the courts were designed, but it seems entirely possible that it was.

At this time some Hohokam people moved north into the Flagstaff area. They introduced ball courts and other distinctive traits of theirculture.[86]

Fig. 47—Red-on-buff Hohokam jars of the Sedentary period. (Courtesy Gila Pueblo.)

In the field of pottery, forty per cent of all that was produced was of the red-on-buff variety. There was a great elaboration of designs and some appear to have been taken from woven fabrics. Panels, negative designs, and patterns tied together by interlocking scrolls, were all common. There was a great variety of shapes which included three and four-legged trays. Jars increased tremendously in size, and a few had a capacity of almost thirty gallons. Bowls were also quite large. Some plain buff ware was manufactured, but it was not common. Less than one per cent of the total pottery assemblage consisted of bowls with heavily slipped and polished reddish brown interiors and mottled brown or gray exteriors. From the eastern area come bright red bowls with smoke-darkened, black interiors.

Figurines were of two types. For the most part they consisted of heads which were apparently attached to bodies made of cord-wrapped fiber. These have not survived, but their presence is indicated by impressions in the clay of the heads. The faces are quite realistic and probably represent an attempt at portraiture. Other figurines,made of buff clay and painted with red, show full figures, seated, with hands resting on the knees.

It is most unfortunate that practically none of the textiles produced at this time have lasted through the centuries. A few fragments have been found which give us tantalizing glimpses of a highly developed craft. Apparently very fine cotton textiles with intricate weaves were produced. No baskets have survived the passage of the years, but ash casts have been found which show that the making of baskets was well developed.

Cremation was still the accepted method of disposing of the dead, although a few burials have been found. Apparently inhumation was tried on a very small scale, but it did not supplant cremation. Bodies and offerings were usually burned, and then the unconsumed portions gathered together and put in small pits dug in thecaliche. In some cases, bodies and offerings were left in the pit in which they were burned, and the pit covered with earth. In the eastern part of the Gila Basin, unconsumed bones and offerings were placed in small pottery urns and buried with a small bowl orsherdcovering the mouth of the urn.

Fig. 48—Hohokam stone palette of the Sedentary period. (Courtesy Arizona State Museum)

Mosaic plaques or mirrors were still used. Palettes continued to serve as mortuary offerings, but they had decreased in number and had greatly degenerated. Raised borders disappeared and onlyincisedlines remained to differentiate the rim and the mixing surface. Some palettes have been found in the area around Flagstaff in a site datedas late as 1278, so thetraitseems to have persisted in the north longer than in the Hohokam province where it appears to have originated.

Stone vessels continued to be made, but they too were decadent. Carving in relief was largely replaced by incising. Life-forms in relief, when they do appear, are highly conventionalized. Many of the vessels are of steatite. There were someeffigyvessels, representing animals and birds, which had shallow basins hollowed out of the backs. Metates and mortars and pestles were well shaped. Some hoes first appeared during Sedentary times, and it is thought that they may have been intrusive. Stone projectile points were long and slender and beautifully flaked. About half had lateral notches and the others were unnotched forms characterized by deep serrations. Stone was widely used as a material for ornaments. A great variety of disc beads were manufactured and the first ear plugs are found in sites of this period, although, as has been previously noted, they are seen on Pioneer figurines and quite possibly had been worn since the earliest times. Some particularly interesting finds include stone objects believed to have been nose-buttons or labrets. Figurines do not show the use of nose-buttons, but they do show ornaments just below the corners of the mouth and these may have been worn through the fleshy part of the chin. Ornaments worn through the nose or chin strike us as strange, for they have never won approval in our particular society, but they have been quite common in other parts of the world. In any case, a glimpse at a woman’s hat shop today offers convincing proof that anything can become fashionable and socially acceptable.

Shell work, already so well developed among the Hohokam, reached its peak in Sedentary times. Mosaic work, in which both shell and turquoise were used, achieved its highest development. The technique employed must be described as overlaying, rather than as inlaying, for depressions were not cut to receive the pieces which, instead, were laid on the surface. Due to the placing of these mosaics in the cremation fires, we know little of their composition beyond the fact that shell was usually used to provide a base for the overlay. Individual pieces were cut in the forms of animals or geometric figures. Disc beads, characterized by large perforations, and pendants were widely made. For the latter, the trend was away from life-forms and toward geometric figures. Many finely carved bracelets were made. Shells with painted designs appear first in Sedentary levels, but, due to the impermanent nature of the paint, there is no assurance that this technique may not have been developed some time before.

The most interesting treatment of shells is exemplified by those with designs applied by an etching process. The Hohokam may have been the first people to discover the technique of etching, for they were using it about the eleventh or twelfth century and the earliest recorded use of the process is on a coat of armor made in Europe in the 15th century.[57]Among the Hohokam the process does not appear to have continued beyond Sedentary times. It was probably never very commonly used and the difficulty of controlling the medium may have contributed to an early abandonment. Painting and etching were sometimes combined, for an example has been found of a shell etched with geometric designs and painted with red and green pigment.

Fig. 49—Hohokam etched shell. Sedentary period. (Courtesy Arizona State Museum)

Since shell is nearly pure calcium carbonate it is easy to see why portions exposed to the action of acid would be eaten away, but we have no way of being sure exactly what the technique used may have been.Experiments conducted in the laboratories of Gila Pueblo, however, have shown how such results could have been obtained with available materials.[31]The problem of finding a suitable acid was first considered. Obviously, for the ancient Hohokam, the problem could not be solved by running down to the corner drugstore. For the purposes of the experiment, a mild acetic acid solution was produced by fermenting juice from the fruit of the giant cactus. Portions of a shell were covered with pitch, a material which resists acid, and the shell immersed in the acid for seventy-two hours. When it was removed, the pitch-covered portion stood out in relief while the exposed parts had been partially eaten away, duplicating the effect found on the prehistoric shells.

Bone tubes continued to be made, but they were plain and undecorated. Other bone artifacts include daggerlike objects with carved heads, which may have served as hair ornaments. Usually the carving represented the heads of mountain sheep or a bird-and-serpent motif.

It was in the Sedentary level at Snaketown that the first objects made of metal were found. These were little copper bells, pear-shaped and split at the bottom, which very much resemble sleigh-bells. A great many identical bells are found in Mexico and it seems probable that the Snaketown examples were imported from there.[59]In the Anasazi area many copper bells were imported from the south. Most of them are dated at between 1300 and 1400 A. D., although some have been found which were brought into Pueblo Bonito and Aztec at an earlier date.

The Classic period of the Hohokam, which lasted from about 1200 to 1400 A. D. or not long thereafter, was a remarkable era which has been referred to as “the Golden Age of southern Arizona”. As has been previously noted, however,Classicis hardly an accurate designation since we are no longer dealing with a pure Hohokamculture. It was during this time that Pueblo traits and, later, Pueblo people themselves entered the Hohokam homeland.

The newcomers, whose influence had been felt even before they themselves arrived, were a group known as the Salado people. The Saladoans are believed to have originated in the Little Colorado area, which they left to move farther south into the Tonto Basin around 1100 A. D.[56]About 1300 they again moved farther south and entered the domain of the Hohokam. They brought with them their own distinctiveculturewhich differed in some ways from the classic Pueblo ofthe San Juan area and was far different from that of the Hohokam. They built thick-walled, multi-storied communal houses of adobe, in walled compounds. Their pottery included coiled and scraped polychrome wares in red, black, and white. They practiced inhumation, or burial of the dead.

Fig. 50—Salado polychrome ware. (Courtesy National Park Service.)

The coming together of the Salado people and the Hohokam is really remarkable. There is no evidence of an invasion nor of violence. Instead, these two culturally different people seem to have come together in a friendly manner and lived together in the same communities in peace and amity. Each group, to a great extent, clung to its own way of life, yet together they achieved a distinctiveculture. It was during this period that the canal system reached its highest development. Doubtless the newcomers, who had had no real irrigation system before, contributed their labor to the common project of building and maintaining the canals which were built to serve their villages.

In the Hohokamcultureproper there were certain changes. Pottery included plain buff ware and a pebble-polished bright red ware, usually in the form of bowls with black interiors, as well as the ubiquitousred-on-buff. In the latter, the red paint was thinner and less brilliantly colored than in earlier times. Jars and pitchers, the latter an innovation of this period, were the commonest forms. Jars with a capacity of over thirty gallons have been found. Painting was characterized by poor brush work. Most designs were rectilinear and practically no life-forms were used. A few figurines, representing both human beings and animals, have been found at Los Muertos, a Classic site, but they were too few to have been important in the culture. There is, of course, the possibility that some were made of perishable materials instead of clay and hence have not survived.

Most Salado pottery during this period was a polychrome ware with red, black, and white. Red was sometimes used as a decorative color, and sometimes formed a part of the background. Bowls and jars predominated, but ladles and mugs were also made, and there were someeffigyvessels, usually in the form of birds. Somecorrugated potterywas also made.

There was a definite decline in some of the arts of the Hohokam. Carved stone vessels and palettes were no longer made. Pyrites mirrors are not found in thishorizon. Shell work continued to flourish, although etching had disappeared. Heavy bracelets were made and true inlay and ceremonial shell trumpets[5]made their first appearance. These were west-coast conch shells with a hole ground into the tip of the spire. Blowing into the shell through this hole produces a trumpetlike sound.

Axes, both single and doublebitted, were beautifully made, and represented stone work at its peak. Projectile points were thin and well made. Usually they were long and triangular. Most of them had notches chipped at right angles but a few were unnotched. Edges were not serrated, as they had been in earlier times. Stone implements, presumably of Salado origin, were added to thecomplex. These included adzes, picks, chisels, crushers, club heads, flakes with serrated edges which served as saws, jar stoppers, pottery scrapers, and shaft straighteners.

Ball courts were greatly reduced in size by Classic times and it seems probable that the game played in them had lost much of its popularity. This belief is confirmed by the absence of a ball court at Los Muertos, one of the largest and most important villages. It seems likely that provisions would have been made at such a settlement for a sport which enjoyed much popular support. A ball court was found at Casa Grande, another important Classic site, however, so thistraithad apparently not disappeared entirely.

It was in the realm of architecture that the greatest changes occurred. Even in Sedentary times, in the eastern part of the Hohokam area, there was a tendency for houses to become surface structures. During the early part of the Classic period, surface houses, sometimes with contiguous rooms, were built by the Hohokam. These changes were probably due to Salado influence, although the people themselves had not yet arrived in the area. Walls were still extremely thin and of typical Hohokam construction, so houses were no more than one story high.

With the arrival of the Salado people, the building of multi-storied houses with massive walls, enclosed in compounds, began. Two of the best known of these are El Pueblo de Los Muertos. (The City of the Dead)[56]which, before its destruction by farmers, lay a few miles south of Tempe, Arizona, and Casa Grande,[26]a great ruin, now a National Monument, which lies nine miles west of Florence, Arizona.

Los Muertos covered a large area and contained thirty-six communal buildings and many small houses. It was a settlement which could not have existed without irrigation, and ditches have been traced which brought water to it from the Salt River. The largest single building was a great rectangular house enclosed on all four sides by a massive wall which reached a thickness of seven feet in some places. Some of the outer walls of the big house achieved a comparable thickness. In addition to the main structure, thecompoundcontained plazas and small house clusters. Another ruin contained two large house clusters. Here some of the rooms had very thin walls, as do the Hohokam houses of Sedentary and early Classic times.

At Los Muertos the Hohokam and the Salado people apparently lived side by side, each clinging for the most part to their own traditions. This divergence was particularly marked in the disposal of the dead. The Saladoans usually buried their dead under house floors or in theplaza. The body was normally extended, with the head to the east. Pottery, jewelry, and some stone artifacts served as grave offerings. The Hohokam continued to practice cremation. The dead were placed on wooden gratings over shallow pits, and the grating was consumed with the body. The unconsumed bones and ashes were placed in jars and buried in special plots near the refuse heaps. There seems to have been some borrowing between the two groups, for occasionally inhumations are found accompanied by the red-on-buff pottery of the Hohokam, and a few cremations have been found with Salado offerings or in polychrome vessels. This borrowing, however, seems to have been sufficiently limited to make it possible, on the basis of the numbers of burials and cremations, to estimate what the comparative ratio of Hohokam to Salado people may have been. On this basis, the Hohokam appear to have outnumbered the foreign element by a ratio of three to one.

Fig. 51—Great House built by the Salado people. Casa Grande National Monument, Arizona. (Courtesy National Park Service.)

The famous site of Casa Grande consists of a group of ruins made up of house clusters surrounded bycompoundwalls. Both thin-walled, single-roomed houses and multiple-roomed structures with massive walls are represented. Of the latter, the outstanding example is a building known as the “Great House” which lies in an enclosure called Compound A. The Great House is four stories high, but only eleven rooms are represented. Originally there were five additional rooms on the ground floor, but these were filled in to form an artificial terrace. The rooms are arranged with one on the top floor and five rooms on each of the two lower stories. Some rooms were entered by small doors, and others through the roof. There were no windows. The walls of the Great House now stand some thirty-four feet above ground level and are over four feet thick. No forms were used, and the wall was constructed by a process of piling up layers of stiffcalichemud. Each course was patted into shape and then allowed to dry to receive the next course. The final finish was obtained by plastering with a thin mud mixture made with sieved caliche.

While the foregoing refers to the Hohokam who lived in the river valleys, there was another group who lived farther to the south in the desert region known as the Papagueria.[57]Here agriculture was more limited, for the only form of irrigation was by ditches designed to divert rain water to the fields. With a less favorable environment, the standard of living was lowered and the reduction of leisure time resulted in a poorer development of arts and crafts. Although the materialculturewas not as rich as in the more favored river valleys, any loss is more than compensated for, from the archaeological point of view, by the fact that the greater aridity of this region has made possible the preservation of much normally perishable material. The ancient desert dwellers further endeared themselves to archaeologists by forsaking cremation about the beginning of the eleventh century.

A remarkable site, known asVentana Cave,[55]which lies in the Papago Indian Reservation, has yielded great quantities of very fine material, including some forty burials, and the final report of this valuable discovery is eagerly awaited. Preliminary reports indicate that the ancient inhabitants of this region strongly resembled the Papago Indians who still occupy it. The early people were fine weavers and made cotton cloth which, together with rabbit-fur blankets and sandals, provided them with clothing.

Fig. 52—Child’s cotton poncho from Ventana Cave. Desert Hohokam, eleventh or twelfth century. (Courtesy Arizona State Museum.)

One strong difference between the Hohokam of the river valleys and those of the desert area lies in the fact that the Salado people did not penetrate into the desert section and thecultureof this region accordingly remained relatively untouched. This isolation seems to have been deliberately achieved by the desert dwellers who erected strings of forts of rough laid stone on volcanic hills to protect their domain. Environment may well have played a strong part in the reaction of the two groups of Hohokam to new people. With their meager resources the people of the Papagueria could hardly accept additions to the population, while the more prosperous group to the north, blessed with the water which means so much in the Southwest, could afford to be friendly.

About 1400 A.D., the Salado people left the Gila country. It is thought that some may have moved east as far as eastern New Mexico and southeast into Chihauhua. Others from the Upper Gila may have drifted north into the Zuñi area. We cannot be sure of the reason for their departure, but one theory, which has been advanced, is that they may have been forced out by the arrival of the Apaches.[27]What happened to the Hohokam themselves we do not know. Possibly they remained in the same district and eventually sites belonging to the period after 1400 may be found. It is also possible that they may have moved to the inhospitable reaches of the Papagueria which would have afforded greater protection against an enemy.

Although there is a gap in our information, the belief is widely held that the Hohokam may have been the ancestors of the present Pima Indians and possibly the Papago, related tribes who speak mutually intelligible dialects of the Piman language. The most convincing argument for this theory is that the Pimas were well established in the Gila Basin, the old Hohokam homeland, when they were discovered by the Spaniards in 1530. The Papago still occupy the desert region of the Papagueria. In general, the way of life of these people was not too different from that of the Hohokam. They were agriculturists, dependent on irrigation, lived in one-room houses, and their pottery was somewhat similar to that of the Hohokam. Quite possibly, other racial strains are present and other groups contributed to the Pima and Papagoculture, but it seems highly probable that the Hohokam was one of the most important elements.

Fig. 53—Pima House in 1897. (Courtesy National Park Service.)

We may characterize the Hohokam as follows: They were a prehistoric agricultural people of southern Arizona who may have been the descendants of the western branch of the ancient food-gathering people of the CochiseCulture. They made an amazing adjustment to an unfavorable environment through the use of an extensive canal system. They lived in one-room houses of wattle-and-daub construction with depressed floors and covered side passages or vestibules. Some big houses built during the earliest period may have sheltered more than one family or they may have been ceremonial structures. There were large courts where it is thought that a ball game similar to that of the Maya was played.

Pottery was made by the paddle-and-anvil technique and fired in anoxidizing atmosphere. Undecorated plain ware was mostly buff, although ranging in shade from gray to brown. Decorated pottery usually had designs in red paint on a buff background. In an early period there was a rare polychrome ware which had red and yellow designs on a gray background. Figurines were also made of clay.

Stone work was well developed. Stone vessels, often with fine carving, were widely made. Well carved palettes are a distinctivetraitof theculture. Mosaic plaques or mirrors, made of pyrites crystals, believed to have been imported from the south, were often used as funeral offerings.

Shell was widely used in the manufacture of ornaments, particularly bracelets. It was usually ornamented by carving, but in a few cases an etching technique was employed. Weaving was apparently well developed, but only a few specimens have been preserved, so our information on this point is scanty.

Disposal of the dead was by cremation. Funerary offerings were burned with the body, and included pottery, figurines, palettes and pyrites mirrors. Ashes, calcined bones, and offerings were gathered together after the cremation and buried. Burial was at first in trenches, later in pits or urns.

About 1300 A. D., Pueblo people moved into the Hohokam country and for the next hundred years the two groups lived together. There was some amalgamation of the two cultures, but in most importantrespects they remained distinct in spite of the closeness of the association. About 1400 A. D. the newcomers moved away. We have no clear information as to just what happened to the Hohokam after that time, but it is possible that they may have remained in the same general vicinity and have been the forerunners of the Pima and Papago Indians who occupied that territory at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards.

Writing about the MogollonCultureis rather like dealing with a time bomb. It is impossible to ignore it, but one has the uncomfortable feeling that whatever one does about it is likely to be wrong. In the relatively few years which have elapsed since it was first suggested that it was a separate entity[89]and not just a regional variation of the Basketmaker-Pueblo pattern, there have come to be many theories.[102]Many archaeologists are convinced that it must be given the status of abasic culturecomparable to that given to the Anasazi and the Hohokam,[50][84]but there are some who feel that it should be regarded as a variant of the Anasazi, and others who consider it the result of an early fusion of Anasazi and Hohokam.[99]Unfortunately, too few sites have been excavated to evaluate fully all the conflicting theories. It has been said that “The Mogollon appears to be an illegitimate whose paternity is still under scrutiny.”[1]

We do know that a group of people lived in west-central New Mexico and east-central Arizona who were largely contemporaneous with the Anasazi and the Hohokam and shared some traits with both cultures, particularly the former. At least during the earliest periods, however, they had aculturedistinctive enough to cause many archaeologists to feel that it is impossible to equate them with any other group.

Although the origins of the Mogollon are still shrouded in mystery, one likely theory, which has been advanced by those who favor the belief that the Mogollon is abasic culture, is that the Mogollon people may be descendants of the eastern branch of the ancient food gatherers of the CochiseCulture.[54]Their stone work is similar, and, while the earliest Mogollon people did practice agriculture and hunting, they too seem to have had an economy based to a great extent on the gathering of wild plant foods. Apart from the problem of origins, there is the further consideration of determining to what extent the early Mogollon people were influenced by other people and to what extent they influenced others. This is one of the most important questions with which Southwestern archaeologists are struggling today.

Much further work will be necessary before even a partially satisfactory answer is found. For the present, there are a few facts and innumerable conjectures. In a publication of this nature, all that may be attempted is to outline the available factual material and indicate some of the theories to which it has given rise.

Fig. 54—Map of the Southwest showing sites referred to in Chapter V.

The name assigned to theculturewas derived from the Mogollon range of mountains which lies in the district in which many of the chief ruins have been found. The principal sites which have been excavated lie in the valleys of the San Francisco and Mimbres rivers in west-central New Mexico, in the Forestdale Valley of Arizona, and in southeastern Arizona. It is probable that, as further work is done, the geographical range of theculturemay be further increased. The area in which Mogollon remains have already been found is a large one, equally as extensive as the Basketmaker. Proponents of the theory that the Mogollon is abasic culturepoint out that it is an important fact that it has geographic substance.[59]

It would be pleasant to be able to divide the Mogollon into clear-cut periods with established dates and full lists of the traits which characterize each stage. Unfortunately, this cannot be done. It has been possible to determine, in a general way, the stages of cultural development in certain sites in New Mexico where there was some degree of uniformity. In other areas, however, conditions were different, and it is impossible to say that at any given time all the Mogollon people had the identical type ofculture, although there are enough points of similarity to permit us to assign them all to the same general group. It seems probable that, as further work is done, separate regional chronologies will be worked out as has been done for the Pueblo sequence where we recognize significant differences between cultural centers such as Chaco, Mesa Verde, and Kayenta.[59]For the present these regional variations add to the complexity of the problem. A further complication arises from the fact that even those who recognize the Mogollon as abasic culturefeel that it is only during the earliest times that they are dealing with a relatively pure culture, and that after 700 or 800 A. D. the Mogollon Culture was beginning to be assimilated by the Anasazi, and that there were also Hohokam influences.

Dates for Mogollon sites are very difficult to determine, for only a few tree-ring dates are available. One find tends to suggest a considerable antiquity for theculture. At Snaketown, in the earliest Pioneer level, was found a polished red ware, which, through petrographic analysis, has been shown to contain materials not used at Snaketown, but identical with those of wares from Mogollon sites.[31]dThis pottery is better made than the early Hohokam pottery and would suggest that the Mogollon people had been making pottery for some time prior to the beginning of the Christian era. Another possibility which has been suggested is that both they and the Hohokam obtained pottery from some other source which has not yet been identified.[99]

The earliest dendrochronologically dated Mogollon site yet found lies in the Forestdale Valley of Arizona. Tree-rings indicate that it was occupied about 300 A. D. As far as it is possible to judge on the basis of the very meager information available in publications at this time, the people who lived at this site, which is known as Bluff Ruin, had a very simpleculture. They lived in round pit houses which were entered through the side. The little pottery which has been found is plain brown ware.

At present the Mogollon in New Mexico is divided into four periods. To the first has been assigned the namePine LawnPhase. It is known only from one location, the SU site which lies about seven miles west of Reserve, New Mexico. The site name was taken from a local cattle brand. No wood suitable for dating has been found, so it has been necessary to estimate the time of occupation on typological evidence. On this basis, it is thought that the SU site was inhabited prior to 500 A. D.

Most of the inhabitants of the SU site lived in very shallow pit houses. These were so irregular in shape, and there was such variation in size and construction, that it has been suggested that the indications are that house building was a relatively newtrait. The greater number of the pit houses were entered by inclined passageways opening to the east. There were no deflectors such as are found in Basketmaker houses.

A few surface houses with wattle-and-daub walls have also been found. They are similarly irregular in shape and size. House floors, both in pit and surface structures, contained pits. There were usually several of these and in one case as many as eight. The largest were over three feet in diameter. Most were empty, and it is thought that they served as storage spaces, but a few contained burned stones and bones and may have been used for cooking. Few houses contained fire pits such as are normally found in Anasazi dwellings.

Pottery consisted of three undecorated wares which, like all early Mogollon pottery, were produced by a coiling and scraping technique and fired in anoxidizing atmosphere. Included are a burnished buff to reddish-brown ware, a thick unpolished brown, and a polished red. All were made of the same type of clay and this argues against the polished red pottery having been of foreign manufacture as has sometimes been suggested.

Stone and bone artifacts were not very carefully worked, and many materials seem to have been utilized without much modification. Stone tools and implements strongly resemble ancient Cochise specimens. Many grinding stones were found and quite a number of them were basin-shaped types such as were used in the preparation of wild plant foods. There were some simple paint-grinding stones. Little unworked bone was found and this bears out the theory that no great amount of hunting was done. Worked specimens were largely made from the longbones of deer. They include pinlike objects and awls. Some of the latter had notches cut in the side.

A total of forty-six burials has been uncovered. Some bodies were buried outside of the houses and some within the walls. These were usually flexed and most of them had been placed in pits. Only a few artifacts were found with the skeletons, and it appears that the practice of burying offerings with the dead was not well established. The skeletons were poorly preserved and have not yielded much information. Deformation of the skull was rare, and, when present, was very slight. It has been suggested that the poor condition of the bones, as compared with animal bones from the same site, may reflect deficiencies in the people’s diet.

The succeeding periods have been found best represented at Mogollon Village,[50]about ten miles north of Glenwood, New Mexico; at Harris Village,[50]a quarter of a mile east of Mimbres, New Mexico; and at Starkweather Ruin,[99]three and a half miles west of Reserve, New Mexico.

The excavation of these sites has yielded evidence of occupation by prehistoric people who practiced agriculture but who were more dependent on hunting than their neighbors to the north and west. Corn was cultivated, but there is no evidence of beans or squash. They used theatlatlor dart-thrower, as well as the bow and arrow. There is no evidence that turkeys were domesticated, although bone remains indicate that they were hunted.

The earliest period represented at these sites is known as theGeorgetown. The estimated dates are from 500 to 700 A. D.[50]Some archaeologists do not agree, and feel that 700 A. D. is the earliest date which may be given for the first Mogollon settlements in New Mexico.[99]During Georgetown times dwellings were small, roughly circular, pit houses which were entered by inclined passageways. A fire pit lay midway between the center of the room and the entrance. Roofs were supported by a main pole in the center of the structure and secondary poles along the walls. One larger pit house was found at Harris Village which, it is thought, may have been used for ceremonial purposes. It did not contain thedeflector,sipapu, or benches which characterize most Pueblo kivas. It differs from the Georgetown domiciliary structures not only in size but in the greater length of the entrance passage and the possession of a straight front wall.

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