This large underground room was a great kiva or ceremonial chamber. Here, perhaps, people from this community and others nearby gathered for rituals marking events important in the lives of all, such as planting and harvest.
In this kiva, you will recognize a familiar combination of pithouse features: central hearth, bench, and postholes. Through time, the pithouse was devoted more and more to religious activities.
The history of this kiva can be read in the stratigraphy, or layers of colored soil, preserved in the earth opposite this stop. When the pit was dug, the soil was piled around the rim. At some point, fire destroyed part of the kiva roof. The rest was taken apart, the beams probably used elsewhere, and the kiva abandoned. Gradually the soil washed back over the rim and into the ruined structure. After a few feet of dirt had accumulated, people built fires in this area, leaving the dark charcoal stains. Finally the people filled the rest of the kiva with earth and trash and built houses on the fill.
Badger House
STOP #6
More towers have been found in the Mesa Verde-Montezuma Valley area than in any other part of the Southwest. Most of these were located near kivas, and many were connected to kivas by tunnels. This suggests that towers were important in Anasazi ceremonial life, but archeologists are not sure how. A tunnel extended 41 feet between a hatchway in the floor of this tower and an opening in the wall of a kiva at the far end of Badger House. This is the longest kiva-tower tunnel yet discovered in the Southwest. The tunnel was built by digging a trench which was then roofed with poles, brush and earth. When the kiva burned, the entrances at both ends of the tunnel were open. Flames were drawn through the tunnel some 20 feet towards the tower, charring the roof.
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.