Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/299

 BOOK REVIEWS 287

In summing up Mr. Morris concludes (p. 204) that the plateau remains are probably to be considered as belonging to the pre-Pueblo culture now generally conceded to have existed in the Southwest. In this we agree with him, for there is no doubt that his plateau sites belong to the same cultural horizon as do the ruins uncovered by us in northeastern Arizona and called "Slab-house" ( Kidder-Guernsey, Bull. 65, B.A.E., pp. 41-45). Of the pottery from the two groups, the decorated ware is very similar and the cooking vessels with broad coils at the necks are identical. The houses found by us were oval rather than rectangular; and their superstructures were, partly at least, made of superimposed courses of adobe "turtlebacks" instead of "wattle-and-daub;" the slab foundations, however, were precisely the same. Furthermore, there was associated with one of our ruins a round subterranean room pre- sumably similar to the round rooms that Mr. Morris records from his district.

The above identification of the two groups (Morris' pre-Pueblo and our "Slab-house") as closely related and therefore probably approxi- mately contemporaneous, is interesting as showing that the two cultures were not strictly local ones. It also proves correct Mr. Morris' deduction that his sites are of earlier date than the Mesa Verde cliff-dwellings; for our "Slab-houses" were buried beneath cliff-house rubbish, and cross- finds of traded pottery enable us to state positively that the cliff-houses of our Kayenta region and those of the Mesa Verde were inhabited at the same time.

To return to a point of detail. Mr. Morris states (p. 204) that of 33 crania 1 1 are undeformed, but he fails to stress the fact that these 1 1 came from a single group of ruins (Long Hollow, see p. 194) ; nor does he mention what seem to be rather marked differences between the Long Hollow pottery and that of the plateau sites. The reader of the report cannot judge for himself whether or not these differences are constant, because the exact provenience of the pieces of pottery figured is not given in the plates, and a search of the text serves to locate only 21 of the 51 specimens illustrated. This is a really serious omission, for every scrap of data on the obscure early periods of pueblo history is of value and it is quite possible that Mr. Morris is dealing with more than one type of remains.

We emphasize the above because the designs on such of the Long Hollow vessels as are definitely located bear what seem to us very striking analogies to basketry designs. If this apparent resemblance proves on closer comparison to be a real one, it will be of great interest in throwing

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