Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1920 — COLLECT RELICS OF LOST RACE [ARTICLE]

COLLECT RELICS OF LOST RACE

Interesting Material Unearthed in Ruins Near Aztec, New Mexico. LIVED IN COMMUNITY HOUSE Custom* of Prehistoric People Are Learned From the Variou* Object* Discovered —Ornament* Practically Untouched by Time. New York. —Temi>orarlly displayed in the west corridor of the American Museum of Natural History, on the first tloor, can be seen some Interesting relics of a lost race —the prehistoric people who built and lived In the great community dwelling, now in ruins, near Aztec, N. M., which Mr. Earl H. Morris has for the past three years been exploring and restoring for the American museum. Mr. Morris has gathered a great deal of material which will in time be placed on permanent exhibition. But the six shelves in the corridor give an idea of the nature of the objects which have been found and of the customs to which they testify. Relic* of Lost Race. Here, outlasting their wearers by centuries, are sandals woven of yucca leaf, yucca fiber and cotton, and here the very pattern boards over which the sandals were made. Here, practically untouched by time, are ornaments of shell cut Into disks, and beads of turquoise and of shell. There are arrow points of Jasper, bone awls and needles and fragments of painted wood —ceremonial boards, doubtless. The basketry Is of two types—colled and twilled —some of it in an excellent state of preservation. Then there are cylindrical netted disks padded with corn husks. These are a puzzle to tiie museum’s investigators. Some one advanced the theory that they might have been used as snow shoes, but the small size and unsuitable shape of some of the specimens seem to refute that supposition. A wooden cradleboard with its curiously placed headpiece accounts for the flattened skulls typical of all the skeletons of this ancient civilization which have been recovered. A pillow of matting stuffed with corn husks, and some human remains wrapped In matting and showing the method of burial complete the miscellaneous portion of the collection. Specimen* of Pottery. The rest of the exhibit Is given over to pottery. The specimens are of white, red and black, and include cooking and eating utensils. The designs—not as advanced in conception us some other of our antique southwestern pottery, are, however, frequently skillfully executed. For the most part painted in black, or, less often, In red, they are sometimes clearly taken from textile designs, sometimes made up of free-hapd curved lines such as would not have been practicable in textiles, or, occasionally consist of crude animal representations. An interesting broken mug shows a hollow bottom in which little pellets of clay had been placed so as to produce a rattle. The cross-markings on the edges of the bowls and drinking vessels are very characteristic of the pottery taken from this vicinity. Most interesting among these relics is the colled pottery—made by rolling long strips of clay and winding them round and round in the desired shape, as Is done in coiled basketry. In the pottery of this sort the mark of the shaping thumb can be plainly seen, and was frequently used to produce a wave pattern which often attained to a very pleasing development