29 SMOKE-BLACKENED WALL. Just as we do spring cleaning, Salado women frequently replastered their little houses with clay. Smoke from cooking and heating fires blackened the wall, but you can still see here hundreds of finger marks left as wet clay was smoothed by hand on the wall.
Finger imprints in plaster.
30 OPEN ROOM. The Indians did not build a roof for this room, because the cave ceiling served the same purpose. Since this large room had good light and ventilation, and offered space protected from the fierce summer sun, it was probably used as a community work area. Two seed grinders, called mortars, are worn into the bench-like bedrock in the back.
A bedrock mortar in the community workroom.
Any of the larger rooms in this village could have been used as meeting rooms or ceremonial chambers, but after damage by early souvenir hunters, no evidence of such use could be found during scientific excavation of the village. Another ruin in the area had a large rectangular room with an altar and other features indicating ceremonial use. Pueblo Indian religion today is deeply threaded through all phases of daily life, and these ancient Pueblos were undoubtedly equally religious.
A view of the central section of the Lower Ruin
PLEASE BE CAREFUL
RETURNING TO THE PARKING AREA.