14
The three doorways in this room have been successively modified by adding new sills, lintels, and secondary jambs, sloped to accommodate door slabs.
The doors may seem small but they were not made for ease of passage, but rather for reduced heat-loss and to make them easier to close off. In fact, the doors of the great Chacoan pueblos were unusually large for Anasazi houses. Typical doorways for the period were narrower and with high sills.
The mud plaster on the south wall is original.
15
The doorway in the east wall was plugged with masonry. Such sealed-off doors were common and probably for a variety of reasons as the use of rooms changed and apartments were rearranged. Sometimes grain-storage rooms were temporarily closed with quickly-laid, crude masonry and mortar to render them rodent-proof.
Series of doorways [photo by Hal Malde]
Almost ten feet below this floor is the floor of a kiva which was part of an earlier version of Bonito’s town plan. It was filled and buried by this later construction.