STOP #7
This site was first occupied from about 900 through 1100. People returned in the 1200’s, built the kiva and tower and a room-block, but soon after abandoned the site for good.
The earliest houses here were so disturbed by later construction that archeologists could not get a clear idea of their number or extent.
Badger House as it may have appeared in the 1200’s.
The ruins exhibited here are the remains of two room blocks built at different times, one partially over the rubble of the other. The lower foundations date from about 1000-1100, the upper from the late 1250’s.
Compare the changes in masonry that took place over this time span. The walls of the earlier rooms are only one-stone wide. Except for the chipping along the edges—a technique sometimes called “scabbling”—the stones were left rough. The walls of the later rooms, however, were built of two parallel rows of stone and the space between them packed with earth and rocks. The stones themselves were finished by pecking, similar to those you will see in the walls of the small kiva at the next stop.
An earth-filled bench was built at one end of each of the later rooms. These may have been sleeping platforms, raised to avoid drafts and the cold air that settled near the floors overnight.
No roofing timbers were found in this room-block. Archeologists believe that when the Anasazi abandoned this site they took much of Badger House with them. Stones and beams from these rooms probably found a place in the walls and roofs of Wetherill Mesa cliff dwellings.