or bake their pottery, the present pueblo Indians of New Mexico
build large but low hearths on the ground of small wood, sticks, and
other inflammable rubbish and refuse, on which they place the newly
formed articles, and then set the floor on fire, until the whole is
thoroughly burnt. Fragments of broken objects, etc., are not removed.
The combustible material is thus reduced to ashes, and the broken pieces
remain within them; their convex surfaces, of course, falling outwards,
and thus resting on the floor. In this manner a thick layer of ashes
and charcoal, with pottery, is easily formed. These "hogueras" are still
from 20 to 40 feet in diameter; but, as they accommodate themselves to
the size of the pueblo, it is certain that they were formerly much
larger. The analogy between such a "potters'-field" and the layer in
question is very striking, and the inference appears likely that the
people who made this corrugated and indented pottery made it in the same
manner as the pueblo Indians now make their painted ware, and as they
made it at the time of the conquest.

These very old manufacturers of indented ceramics were also a
horticultural people, for they raised Indian corn. The cob found in the
ashes, or rather cut out with the knife at some distance inside the
bluff, is charred and small. To what variety of Zea it belongs the
specialist must decide.

I hold it to be utterly useless, and even improper, on my part to
speculate any further on these "pre-traditional" people. Perhaps I have
already said too much. Excavations alone can throw further light on the
subject.

THE TRADITIONAL AND DOCUMENTARY PERIOD.

The term "traditional" is applied to this period, because the people
occupying the site of Old Pecos have left some traditions behind them,
and not because we know when it commenced. In fact, I am much inclined
to divide it, for the sake of convenience, into two periods again, one
of which includes the occupation of the area within the circumvallation
and its necessary annexes (field, etc.), whereas the other includes the
area without. Of the former, we have definite knowledge in regard to its
inhabitants; of the latter, we have none whatever. It is therefore also
pre-traditional as yet. Nevertheless, I have included it in the second
epoch, as its ruins indicate that its people possessed arts identical
with those of the present pueblo Indians. Their pottery, wherever
exposed, was painted, figured, and vitrif