Floors and Roofs
Not a single entire roof remained in Cliff Palace, and only one or two rooms retained remnants of rafters. It would seem, however, from the position of the holes in the walls into which the rafters once extended that they were constructed like those of Spruce-tree House, a good example of which is shown in plate 9 of the report on that ruin. The floors seem to have been formed of clay hardened by tramping, but there is no evidence of paving with flat stones. The hardened adobe is sometimes laid on sticks without bark and stamped down. Although no instance of extensive rock cutting of the floor was observed in secular rooms, this is a common feature of kiva floors. Floors were generally level, but in some instances, when rock was encountered, the surface was raised in part above the other level. The majority of the floors had been dug into for buried specimens before the repair work was begun, but here and there fragments of floors were still intact, showing their former level. Banquettes or ledges around the walls are rare. In a few instances the unplastered roof of the cave served as the roof of the highest rooms.