Antiquities of the Mesa Verde National Park

by Jesse Walter Fewkes

MORTUARY ROOM

Room 9 may be designated a mortuary room from the fact that at least four human skeletons and accompanying offerings have been found in its floor. Three of those, excavated several years ago, were said to have been infants; the skull of one of these was figured and described by Prof. G. Retzius, in Nordenskiöld’s memoir. The skeleton found by the author was that of an adult and was accompanied by mortuary offerings. The skull and some of the larger bones were well preserved.[20] Evidently the doorway of this room had been walled up and there are indications that the burials took place at intervals, the last occurring before the desertion of the village.

The presence of burials in the floors of rooms in Spruce-tree House was to be expected, as the practice of thus disposing of the dead was known from other ruins of the Park, but it has not been pointed out that we have in this region good evidence of several successive interments in the same room. The existence of this intramural burial room in the south end of the ruin is one of the facts that can be adduced pointing to the conclusion that this part of the ruin is very old.

SMALL LEDGE-HOUSES

Not far from the Spruce-tree House, situated in the same canyon, there are small one-room houses perched on narrow ledges situated generally a little higher than the cave containing the main ruin. Although it is difficult to enter some of these houses, members of the author’s party visited all of them, and two of the workmen slept in a small ledge-house on the west side of the canyon. Except in rare cases these smaller houses can not be considered dwellings; they may have been used for storage, although it is more than likely that they were resorted to by priests when they wished to pray for rain or to perform certain ceremonies. The ledge-houses form a distinct type of ruin; they are rarely multiple-chambered and therefore are not capacious enough for more than one family.

STAIRWAYS

There are two or three old stairway trails in the neighborhood of Spruce-tree House. These consist of a succession of holes for hands and feet, or of a series of pits cut in the face of the cliff at convenient distances. One of these ancient trails is situated on the west side of the canyon not far from the modern trail to the spring; the other lies on the east side a few feet north of the ruin. Both of these trails were appropriately labeled for the convenience of future visitors. There is still another ancient trail along the east canyon wall south of the ruin. Although all these trails are somewhat obscure, it is hoped that they can be readily found by means of the labels posted near them.

REFUSE-HEAPS

In the rear of the buildings are two large open spaces which, from their positions relative to the main street, may be called the northern and southern refuse-heaps. They merit more than passing consideration. The former, being the larger, has not yet been thoroughly cleared out, although pretty well dug over before the repair work was begun. The author completely cleared out the southern refuse-heap and excavated to its floor.[21]

The southern recess opens directly into the main street and is flooded with light. Its floor is covered with large fragments of rock that have fallen from the cliff above. The spaces between these bowlders were filled with débris and the bowlders themselves were covered with the same accumulations the removal of which was no small task.