Research Items

Abstract

Pit—Dwellings at Kiatuthlanna, Eastern Arizona.—Ruins on tho Long H ranch, Twin Salt Lakes, in Apacho County, were excavated by Mr. Frank H. H. Roberts, jr., on behalf of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1929, the results being described in Bulletin 100 of tho Buroau. By the end of the field season, eighteen pit-houses, the remains of jacal structures, and a pueblo ruin with forty-nine rooms and four kivas had been recovered. The chronological sequence was in the order named. There were two forms of pit-house, of which the larger was a later development of the smaller. In each case there was a rectangular superstructure of poles with flat ceiling and sloping sides. The framework was covered with brush, leaves, otc, and a rectangular hole in the centre of the ceiling served as an entrance and smoke escape. Characteristic furnishings wore a ventilator, fire-pit, a sipapu or symbolic representation of the mythical place of emergence, and a hole for the storage of small objects. This group of features survived in the later ceremonial chamber of the communal dwelling, a survival for ceremonial purposes of the old original type of house. The pit-houses occur in groups of four to six, perhaps representing a single family group or clan. Several might constitute a village. In some groups the central house was larger, suggesting that a definite ceremonial significance was becoming attached to a particular building, possibly representing the prototype of the kiva of later periods. The smaller houses were found to be reminiscent of structures belonging to the end of Baskot Maker III. period, the larger of Pueblo I. of the Chaco Canyon of New Mexico and south-west Colorado. In general the pit-houses show a greater resemblance to dwelling forms excavatod in the north than they do to those of the south and southwest. The jacal dwollings, which have upright walls of poles covered with mud and ranging from a single to several rooms, were contemporary with tho large pit-dwellings.