27 ORIGINAL CLAY FLOOR. All floors in the village were once smooth, made of adobe clay like this one, but heavy traffic over recent years has destroyed all but this one remnant. Please help us preserve this floor by staying out of the room.
Cross-Section of a floor.
Showing: outer wall; rock; clay floor; shallow firepit; bedrock
At the back of the room the clay floor joins natural bedrock of the cave. Because the cave floor was so irregular, the Indians had to build retaining walls and fill to make a level spot for their homes. Wet clay was spread on the fill to make, when dry, a smooth, level floor.
Note the little clay-lined firepit in the center of the room; it is only about 6 inches deep and 5 across, but provided adequate heat and cooking space.
28 METATE (meh-TAH-tay) and MANO (MAH-no). These Spanish words refer to the stone tools used for grinding dried corn, seeds, mesquite pods, palo verde beans and other foodstuffs. The small, hand-held stone is the mano. We do not know what the Salado called these essential kitchen tools, for their lost language was unwritten.
Imagine the many hours of hard work represented by the deep grooves worn in this hard stone! Try it yourself: kneel and rub the mano back and forth over the trough of the metate; think of doing such work for many hours each day.
Metate and mano.
Can you see the broken metate that was used as a building stone? Look above the barred door to the right, just below the stabilizing beam.