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.
STOP #8
After about 900, Mesa Verde communities were dotted with kivas like this one. Small kivas probably were used by several related families or by secret religious societies whose members specialized in performing certain types of ceremonies. The roof was at ground surface. Kiva roofs were supported by an ingenious cribbed framework of logs. The ends of the logs rested on the pilasters or columns along the kiva wall. Note the large rectangular pit or vault in the floor. The ends of this vault were stepped and supported a plank hewn from ponderosa pine. Archeologists believe that this was used as a drum.
