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| Room 25, with Bob Smith for scale, is another deep pithouse with stepped entry, a hearth and four roof supports. It took over two years to excavate this structure and unravel the sequence of events. The upper part of the room had been filled with trash from the pueblo occupants, and the pueblo was eventually extended over this room. The trash deposit was easy to recognize, but ended with a layer of caliche. Across most of the site, caliche occurs as a sterile, natural layer below most features or served as the bottom for pits and some room floors. At first we thought that the caliche layer in Room 25 was natural and quit digging in the area. However, the large and rectangular shape to the trash deposit was puzzling because it did not resemble other situations of trash disposal at the site. So, another one-meter square was dig and luckily encountered one of the neatly plastered pithouse room corners. It turns out that this deep pithouse had been intentionally filled with caliche. |