USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Madisonville > Indian Village Site and Cemetery Near Madisonville, Ohio > Part 16
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Cave 3 is a mere shelter measuring 15 feet in depth by 30 feet in width. The wash of a small canyon has cut away the floor at the front. On the back wall are a number of pictographs done in white, red, and yellow paint; some of these are reproduced in plate 13, a. We found several slab cists buried beneath the sand floor. They contained nothing except cedar bark.
1 Kidder-Guernsey, 1919, p. 27 and figure 1.
PEABODY MUSEUM PAPERS
VOL. VIII, No. 2, PLATE 11
b
WHITE DOG CAVE a, Rock pile in center of cave; b, Southern wall and ventilator in kiva.
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Cave 4, a short distance up the canyon, is 20 feet above the rash. It has a depth of 12 feet and measures about 24 feet Cross the front. The floor is of hard-pan free from surface sand. D it are a number of small cists or pot-holes. At the front the Erd-pan formation has a vertical break, in which is dug a small Uabby hole measuring 4 feet in depth by 3 feet 6 inches in width. At the entrance to this little room, shown at the left in plate 12, a, are a number of flat slabs arranged like steps, a single slab 2 feet Ong and 8 inches wide serving for a sill. There are several small Loles dug through the top of the room to the surface above. The Ergest of these holes is plugged with a rock.
A little further along the cliff is a rectangular Cliff-dweller room, he dimensions of which are, length 12 feet, width 7 feet, height of wall 6 feet 6 inches. In the center of the front wall is a door- way 29 inches high, 16 inches wide. At the top is a flat stone slab Lintel supported by two round sticks built into the wall, another slab serves as a sill. The edges have grooves or jambs for the re- ception of a slab door. The masonry of this room is good. There were no pictographs. Potsherds were plentiful and along the cliff near the room there was some rubbish and a number of ash beds.
Cave 5 is still further up the canyon. It measures 45 feet across the front, and 15 feet in depth. At the back are the foundations of a room 10 feet long by 6 feet wide built out from the cliff. The masonry is of stones laid flat in adobe mortar. Two slab cists and two cists dug in the hard-pan floor were found in the cave, but no specimens.
Near the sites just described is a small shelter on the ground level of such insignificant size that no number was assigned to it in our field notes. We dug here, however, and at a depth of one foot below the surface found two slab cists partly filled with cedar bark. These were undoubtedly storage cists, as near by is a Navajo cornfield, located in a small basin which collects and retains such water as in time of rain runs off the surrounding cliffs, an advantage probably recognized by the early occupants of the region as readily as by the present day farmers.
The principal structures in these caves are of course Cliff- dweller. The slab cists and possibly some of those excavated in the hard-pan we are inclined to think are Basket-maker. No great amount of work was done at any of the sites, as we were on such
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short rations of water that our examination really only amounted to a reconnoissance. Continued drought finally drove us away, and we returned to the South Comb.
SOUTH COMB REVISITED
Cave 6. This site is in the next break in the Comb north of White Dog Cave, a distance of about one mile in an air line. It consists of a small alcove at the back of a huge crescent-shaped bay or cove in the cliff wall. Filling the open end of the crescent and hiding the cave from view in front is a high sand hill covered by a growth of thick brush and tall pines. The cliff on either side of the cave overhangs, sheltering a wide strip along the wall some fifteen feet lower than the floor level of the cave proper. On this level to the left of the entrance there is part of a roughly laid wall, built against the cliff. It forms a small enclosure and is probably the work of Navajo herders or possibly Ute, as on the smooth cave wall back of it are a number of drawings in charcoal (plate 13, f), one of which, a female figure, is shown wearing a dress that has characteristic features of the Ute woman's dress. Inside this en- closure were traces of recent fires and on the surface was a small mudded-up fire pit, which gave us the impression of having been the work of children.
The walls and ceiling of the inner cave are much blackened by smoke. It had been used as a sheep shelter and the old floor was covered by a thick layer of dung. The most careful search of the surface on the first level and the bank leading up to the cave proper failed to produce a single Cliff-dweller artifact and our excavations later showed not a vestige of Cliff-dweller occupation. Here for the first time we had a cave containing only Basket- maker remains, and while but a few specimens were found they were for the most part very true to type, the exceptions being en- tirely new material. A single burial was encountered. This was in a stone slab cist (plate 9, c), exactly like those found in such numbers in Cave 1, Kinboko (1915). Unfortunately, however, it had not only been plundered at some early date, but what re- mained of its contents had been partly destroyed by fire. The top of the cist was 18 inches below the surface. It measured 3 feet 4 inches in diameter at the top, 2 feet 6 inches in diameter at the
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bottom, and was 2 feet, 4 inches deep. Ten slabs were used in its construction. In the upper part was a quantity of cedar bark and a few bones from the skeleton of a child, then a mass of charcoal and charred wood in which were fragments of human bones. On the bottom at one side was a partly burned cradle frame, and the mummified foot of an adult. Other objects found scattered in the fill are as follows: fragments of fur-string robe, dressed skin robe, twined-woven grass mat, string apron, a sandal, an atlatl, a grooved club, a skin-covered umbilical pad, the bark core of another, a skin bag, a bunch of human hair, a fragment of squash shell, and many small bits that could not be identified. All these specimens were more or less charred.
But one other slab cist was encountered. Its only unusual fea- ture was a bottom lining of thin slabs of spruce bark.
Nearly all the level portion of the cave floor was occupied by a deep ash bed in which only a few minor specimens were found. Just outside this area at a depth of 1 foot 6 inches was a tray basket, and buried in the loose fill near it at about the same depth was the small woven bag in which was the little skin pouch shown with its contents in plate 44.
On the right of the cave the floor rises and narrows until it gives place to a mere bank of débris piled up against the back wall. At the highest point of this bank and next to the wall, three deer or possibly mountain-sheep snares were found. They had been cached in a shallow hole scooped out of the fill, and were covered with cedar bark and a thin layer of dirt. These snares are new items in our Basket-maker list. They are described and figured in another place (plate 32). A few feet from where the tray basket was found, and at the same depth, were three sherds of a substance resembling pottery of unbaked clay, tempered with shredded cedar bark, and bearing on one side the imprint of coiled basketry (plate 25, a). This may really be a primitive form of pottery or may represent only some left-over material for smearing joints in a slab cist, which was prepared outside the cave where both water and clay could be had, and then brought into the cave, while soft, in a convenient tray basket, from which it was not removed until it had hardened by drying. It is the nearest approach to pottery we have yet encountered under circumstances that would free it from suspicion of Cliff-dweller origin. Mr. John Wetherill,
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to whom it was shown, said it recalled the pottery found in the Basket-maker caves of Grand Gulch. This, according to McLloyd and Graham's description as quoted by Pepper,1 was " a very
CLIFF WALL
CISTS
FEET
o
FIGURE 8 Cross-section of Cave 7, South Comb.
crude, unglazed ware, some of the bowls showing the imprint of the baskets in which they were formed."
As stated before, all our work in this cave brought to light not one trace of Cliff-dweller occupation, which includes not only potsherds, but also turkey droppings and turkey feathers, beans 1 1902, p. 9.
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and rubbish layers. Hence the collection obtained here, though not extensive, is important as it supplies unmixed material with which to check our previous identifications.
Cave 7. About one mile north of Cave 6, we found another shelter very similar to it, except that it lacked the alcove room at the back. A steep hill rises directly in front of it. The slope of the hill next to the cliff lies almost wholly inside the line of shelter and its base at that point is cut away by an arroyo which continues along the wall for some distance. This seemed a very unpromising site, but on investigation we found a number of slab storage cists filled with cedar bark or grass, located as shown in the cross- section, figure 8. No Cliff-dweller remains were found here and only two Basket-maker specimens. These were the digging sticks shown in plate 37, e, f. This shelter seemed never to have been used as a place of abode for any great period as we found no exten- sive ash bed. Perhaps it was conveniently near some cornfield and was used only for storage purposes or as a temporary dwelling place while farming was in progress.
By the time that the work in Cave 7 was completed, the water in this section had become so bad that we were again forced to move.
SAGIOTSOSI CANYON
Sagiotsosi Canyon, though small in size compared with many others in this region, exceeds all that the writers have visited in the number of caves to be found in it and its branches. Its scenery is exceedingly picturesque, and it is rendered doubly attractive in this parched land by a stream of clear cold water fed by numerous springs that emerge from the base of the cliffs on either side at the upper end. This stream flows the entire length of the canyon finally to disappear in the thirsty sands just outside the entrance. In one place where it has cut a deep arroyo, a dark peat-like stratum can be seen in the vertical sides of the cut, marking an old lake bottom that probably once provided a natural reservoir for the ancient inhabitants. Today a number of well-irrigated Navajo cornfields and thrifty peach orchards show the water supply to be still ample for the requirements of primitive farming.
The caves in the main canyon are for the most part high up under the rim-rock and are perhaps more properly described as shelters. Some are of huge size with high arched openings, but of
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BASKET-MAKER CAVES
no great depth. Occasionally they occur in groups of three or four, quite close together. To enter them one must first climb over huge fallen rocks to the first bench of the cliff, then up a steep talus of finer detritus to the caves, the bottoms or floors of which are really nothing but the truncated apex of the talus. Several of these caves have in them small Cliff-dweller structures. A number have already been explored by Professor Cummings.1
On the right about half way up the canyon and high in the cliff is a fair sized cliff-dwelling which to date has not been excavated. An interesting feature of this ruin is a tower that commands every approach to the cave. A cursory examination indicated that the roof had been destroyed by fire. On the back wall of the cave is a pictograph similar to the one illustrated in plate 13, e.
Cave 8. This cave is in the first branch-canyon leading out of Sagiotsosi to the west. It is in reality a shelter under the over- hang of the cliff, 30 feet in width, some 70 feet in length and about 25 feet above the bed of the wash. There is in it ample evidence of Cliff-dweller occupation, consisting of some foundation walls, a good depth of rubbish, with many potsherds, and a number of Cliff-dweller pictographs (plate 13, d, e); there is also a square- shouldered human figure done in white and yellow paint. This shows very faintly and a small Cliff-dweller painting of a snake overlaps it in one place (d). It was this square-shouldered picto- graph that induced us to dig here, as our previous experience had shown these figures to be of Basket-maker origin.
Our excavations disclosed considerable Cliff-dweller rubbish with hard-pan below it in which we found a number of cists, empty except for cedar bark or coarse grass. These cists and the square- shouldered figure are the only remaining evidences of Basket- maker occupation. From the general digging we obtained a num- ber of. Cliff-dweller specimens including the skeleton of a young child on a perfectly preserved cradle which had been buried under the rocks at the top of the bank at the front.
This shelter seems insignificant in comparison to the huge caves in the main canyon. It provides, however, a further illustration of the fact that no cave or shelter in this region is so small that it has not at some time attracted tenants who have left traces of their occupancy.
1 1910, pp. 9-18.
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Cave 9. Across the canyon from Cave 8 is a small Cliff-dweller ruin in a low cave that shows signs of previous investigation. Rooms along the back wall have been reroofed by the Navajo and used for storage purposes. This cave in the writers' opinion gives evidence of two occupations. This belief is, however, based wholly on the presence of typical Basket-maker cists excavated in the hard-pan floor (plate 14, c, d), for we found here no objects that could be classed as Basket-maker. The cists occurred in a small unoccupied area in the center and were completely filled with Cliff-dweller rubbish. There is, nevertheless, evidence at one place
U
CISTS
FELT
FIGURE 9 Plan of Cave 9, Sagiotsosi Canyon.
that the cists were here when the Cliff-dweller structures were erected, for the side wall of one room is built partly across a cist (see figure 9). The latter could hardly have been made by the Cliff-dwellers, since they could have easily avoided weakening the foundation of their wall by digging the cist a little to one side.
In objection to the foregoing it may be said that the cists are of Cliff-dweller origin; they are, however, exactly like ones found in other caves containing Basket-maker burials, and since all Basket- maker cists have a certain unity of design and a certain " look," hard to describe but at once apparent to anyone who has opened a number of them, the authors are satisfied that their identifica- tion of the present examples is correct. Compare c and d, plate 14 with a and b of the same plate; the latter are from photographs of Basket-maker cists in White Dog Cave.
Cave 10. Just below Cave 8 there is a narrow break in the canyon wall with a length of perhaps 400 feet. About half way up this
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gulch is a shelter 20 feet in depth and 40 feet across the front (plate 5, b). The only sign of occupation noticed on entering was the top of a stone slab cist which just showed above the sur- face sand and a number of hand-prints in red on the back wall at one side. Excavation proved, however, that the place had been occupied by both the Basket-makers and the Cliff-dwellers. The Cliff-dweller remains consisted of a few potsherds, several bone scrapers of a typical Cliff-dweller form,1 and a quantity of corn- cobs which we think are Cliff-dweller because they are much longer and larger than the Basket-maker corncobs we have found.
The Basket-maker remains were empty storage cists, both slab and excavated, with cedar bark in their bottoms. There was also one Basket-maker burial cist containing the partly mummified and headless body of a child, wrapped in a fur-string robe. With the body was part of a large dressed skin bag and at the feet lay badly rotted square-toed sandals. This burial was identical with those found in other Basket-maker caves. Evidence appeared that this or other cists had been plundered, as in the general digging there were found a number of fragments of Basket-maker basketry and a small piece of rabbit net made of human hair and fiber- string combined.
To gain entrance to the gully in which this cave is located one must cross a smooth, waterworn ledge. Up this is pecked a series of tracks representing the hoof-marks of a horse. They are very neatly executed and are the first instance that has come to our notice of pecked pictographs of recent (Navajo or Paiute) origin.
Cave 11. This cave is in the east wall of the main canyon near its head. It is some 200 feet above the wash and consists of a nar- row shelter with a frontage of about 150 feet. On the back wall are a number of hand-prints and some nearly obliterated human figures all in white. On the surface were scattered a few bleached human bones. Large flat rocks along the front show deep axe- grinding grooves.
We were only able to spend a half day here. Our limited digging showed that for a considerable period the cave had been used by Cliff-dwellers and we recovered a number of their characteristic
1 See Morris, 1919, figure 23, e. We found none of this variety in our cliff-house excava- tions in 1914.
PEABODY MUSEUM PAPERS
VOL. VIII, No. 2, PLATE 13
b
c
d
e
f
Sayodneechee Canyon: a, Pictographs in white paint, Cave 3. Sagiotsosi Canyon: b, Picto- graph in red paint, Cave 12; c, Pictographs in white paint, Cave 14; d, e, In white paint, Cave 8; f, In charcoal, Cave 6.
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artifacts from the rubbish. At one point we found a loom-anchor in place. This consisted of a smooth pole one and one-half inches in diameter and six feet long, having loops of braided yucca and heavy fiber cord strung on it at regular intervals. It was buried several inches below the floor and held down by flat rocks, the tops of the loops just protruding above the surface. Under some large rocks at the front of the cave, we uncovered a small Basket-maker pannier basket in a poor state of preservation, inverted over a quantity of corncobs; probably the corn had been stripped by rodents. Attached to it was part of a carrying-strap of human hair string.
In a narrow part of the shelter and under what must have been the path ordinarily used in entering it, we found a disturbed Basket-maker burial. Some of the bones including the skull were missing. There were with the remains fragments of a coiled basket, square-toed sandals and a piece of finely woven cloth.
Cave 12. This is a deep cavern a short distance down the canyon from Cave 11 and on the same side. It is about 90 feet above the wash and has a fairly level floor area 40 feet deep by 70 feet across the front. The walls and ceiling are much blackened by smoke, and the floor is thick with charcoal. At one point the top of a rude enclosure of stone slabs shows just above the surface. This is circular in shape and has a diameter of 12 feet. At one place in the back wall are a group of hand-prints in red placed as near together as possible and covering a space of 6 feet or more; the only other pictograph noticed is the small figure shown in plate 13, b, also done in red. On a flat rock at the front are a number of axe-grinding grooves.
Our digging here was confined to test holes, as it was obvious that it would be too much of an undertaking for our small party to clear the cave completely. We found rubbish along the back wall to a depth of a little more than one foot. It was very com- pact and contained a large amount of broken sticks and twigs, straw and charcoal. There were two or three slab cists partly filled with cedar bark but holding no specimens.
We do not think any great returns would reward further work at this site. It had apparently been used by Basket-makers and Cliff-dwellers in turn, but did not appeal to the latter strongly
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BASKET-MAKER CAVES
enough to warrant the erection of any structures. It is set very deep in the cliff and gets but little sun; it may have been con- sidered undesirable on this account.
Cave 13. This is a very long shallow shelter high up in the cliff near the head of the branch canyon in which Caves 8, 9 and 10 are located. At some not very remote time a great quantity of the roof had scaled off, burying almost the entire floor beneath tons and tons of rock. At one end of the cave is a series of small cliff- house rooms, some of which still retain roofs; others are crushed and the walls partly buried beneath the fallen rocks. Along the whole front of the cave can be traced a low roughly built wall. It seems probable that beneath the rocks are structures similar to those in the end of the cave, but to reach them would be a very large undertaking. We noticed no pictographs here.
Cave 14. This cave, the last to be explored, is but a short dis- tance from Cave 13. It consists of a shallow shelter 200 feet above the canyon bottom, and has a usable floor space 20 feet deep by 70 feet in length. The line of shelter extends some 20 feet beyond the point where the floor breaks away at the front. At one end is a small niche in the back wall 7 or 8 feet above the floor. Leading up to it are a number of pecked toe-holes. The ceiling and some parts of the walls of the cave are blackened by smoke. On a smooth area of the wall near the center is a group of square shouldered human figures painted in white, while other similar figures show faintly at other points (plate 13, c). These are distinctly Basket- maker. Built against the back wall of the cave is a series of seven. stone slab structures, six of which are in a fair state of preservation. These will be given a more detailed description further on.
In our excavations here we found below the surface several slab cists of the usual Basket-maker type. From one we obtained a small skin pouch, which with its contents is shown in plate 38, a-c; also, in the loose fill, a wooden implement plate 36, a; and the bundle of human hair wrapped with string illustrated in plate 32, e. At the extreme right of the cave a single square-toed sandal was found in the general digging, and several ears of corn cached in the loose dirt against a large flat rock. So near is this cave to Cave 13 that it is inconceivable that it had not been frequented by Cliff- dwellers to some extent, yet careful search of the surface, and
PEABODY MUSEUM PAPERS
VOL. VIII, No. 2, PLATE 14
a, b, Cists dug in hard-pan, White Dog Cave; c, d, Cists, Cave 9.
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watchfulness throughout the digging failed to produce a trace of their handiwork with the possible exception of the corn which may be Cliff-dweller, as it is unlike the characteristic Basket- maker corn. It was found in a part of the cave quite remote from the cists. There were no potsherds, twilled sandals, feather cloth or even axe-grinding grooves. The latter are seldom absent from caves in which the Cliff-dwellers have lived.
The most interesting things in the cave are the slab structures along the back wall (plate 12, b). They average about 5 feet in diameter, the best preserved standing three and one-half feet above the surface. Large stone slabs are used in their construction, in most cases overlapping. The space between the joints is filled with adobe mortar which in some instances has been plastered all Over the slabs both outside and in. Small stones are set in to fill holes between the slabs and the cave wall to reinforce the slabs at their bases. In the structures and on the surface about them were a number of timbers from 4 feet 6 inches to 6 feet in length and 4 to 6 inches in diameter, probably roof timbers. Other shorter sticks were found which had once formed a part of a rim molded on to the top of the slabs. These pieces had traces of adobe on one side; there were also found large lumps of adobe tempered with cedar bark with one side moulded round, the other bearing imprints obviously made by the short timbers just mentioned. These sections of stick and adobe are important because they show that the present above-ground cists are identical in rim construc- tion with a subterranean Basket-maker storage place (Cist 14) found in Cave 2, Kinboko during the 1915 season.1 Another larger cist (12) in the same cave had a similar rounded adobe coping strengthened with stones instead of sticks. The drawing, plate 9, e, represents one of the Cave 14 cists with a short section of the rim restored. The slabs are shown partly denuded of the adobe plaster, while on the wall behind the cist a line of adobe is indicated which probably marks the outline of the roof. This structure more fully restored appears in f, of the same plate.
Why so much care should have been taken to finish the rim, if the roof timbers were to rest directly on it, we are unable to say, though it is evident that a rim made in this way would greatly
1 Kidder-Guernsey, 1919, p. 88.
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