at Pecos older than those of the present ruins
and different in kind. These remains, as it may already have been
inferred from the "personal narrative," are those found on the west side
of the arroyo, in the basin (or rather the bank encircling it) opposite
the rock carvings.

One fact is certain, the human bones, the walls protruding from the
banks, and the grave found by Mr. E. K. Walters, are all above the layer
of white ashes, charcoal, corncobs, and corrugated pottery found as a
continuous seam along an extent of over 100 m.--327 ft.--from N. to S.
Consequently, the walls and graves must have been built over these
remains of a people which appears to have made indented and corrugated
pottery alone, and consequently also the latter must be older in time
than the former. It does not appear that the sedentary Indians of New
Mexico ever made, within traditional and documentary times, any other
than the painted pottery in greater or less degree of perfection. Even
Gaspar Castano de la Sosa, when he made his inroad into New Mexico in
1590, mentions at the first pueblo which he conquered: "They have much
pottery,--red, figured, and black,--platters, caskets, salters,
bowls.... Some of the pottery was glazed."[132] The corrugated and
indented pottery, as I am assured by Sr. Vigil, is rarely met with over
New Mexico, except at old ruined pueblos, and only when digging (en
cavando).[133] I feel, therefore, justified in assuming it to have been
the manufactured ware of a people distinct from the Pecos tribe or the
pueblo Indians of New Mexico in general, and their predecessors in point
of time. This pottery, however, is frequently met with among the cliff
dwellings of the Rio Mancos and in Utah.[134] Its relation, then, to the
painted pottery has, as far as I know, not yet been investigated.

But what could have been the purpose in covering originally a space of
over 100 m.--327 ft.--in length with the products of combustion and
fragments of one and the same industry in such a manner as to form an
uninterrupted layer of 0.45 m.--18 in.--at least in thickness? Those who
subsequently buried their dead over the seam certainly did not collect
these ashes and spread them there as a floor on which they rested their
structures afterwards. The combustion of a large wooden building would
not have given the same uniformity on such a large scale. Sr. Vigil has
suggested to me the following very plausible explanation: In order to
burn