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Show EVERYDAY LIFE IN PUEBLO BONITO 261 There may have been a single outpouring, a general exodus, like the Children of Israel's, or there may have been a piecemeal migration, a clan or two at a time. Disease may have cut its sudden swath, leaving terrifying thoughts in the minds of these primitive desert dwellers. There may have been one cause or several. Of this much only are we certain: The Bonitians were being subjected to a constantly increasing pressure from nomadic, enemy peoples. We know that, seeking protection from these demoralizing attacks, the inhabitants sealed all outside doors and windows, thus making of their great community house a veritable fortress. The anxieties of defensive warfare may well have hastened the actual abandonment of the village. Again, such warfare may have exterminated or reduced to captivity those few survivors of the original settlement who clung tenaciously to their ancestral home. DWINDLING WATER SUPPLY MAY HAVE CAUSED MIGRATION Evidence relating specifically to this last period of occupancy is meager and inconclusive. Perhaps the disturbed room burials uncovered last season represent hasty interment of bodies sacrificed in these final struggles. At least one of the defenders was shot through with an arrow; its flint point had been broken off in one of his lumbar vertebras when the feathered shaft was pulled from the fatal wound. Other possibilities remain. The water supply may have dwindled ; there may have been successive years of drought, during which new crops were not matured; or, what is equally plausible, long-continued irrigation may have produced sterility in their cultivated fields. This latter, indeed, appears to have been a very important contributory factor. Recent experiments in semi-desert areas of the Southwest show that irrigation water of a certain type tends to eliminate or wash out helpful chemicals from the soil, leaving behind too high a percentage of sodium bicarbonate. The latter has a hardening effect upon the soil and makes it impermeable to water. During the course of The Society's explorations in Chaco Canyon, we have noticed repeatedly that shallow puddles of rain water sometimes stand for days without wetting the earth so much as an inch below the surface. By analysis of the soil in such places, it has been determined that black alkali is present to such an extent as to render agriculture practically impossible. Since these salts are found to a depth of ten feet, it is highly probable that farming eventually became as hopeless in ancient times as it would he to-day. Bonitian gardens were very likely located along the sandy margins of Chaco Canyon to profit most from such rain water as drained off the mesas ; but if this water gradually destroyed the productivity of the soil, as it has elsewhere, even a small resident population would soon have found themselves in a very precarious position, threatened with failure of their chief means of livelihood. In this connection it should be remembered that Pueblo Bonito, at the height of its influence, sheltered no less than 1,200 people, almost wholly dependent upon agriculture. These villagers had no beasts of burden ; with prowling enemies present they would not long have sought to cultivate distant farms or to support themselves through barter with other tribes. THE LAST CHAPTER OE BONITIAN STORY IS LOST IN SHIFTING SANDS In striving to reconstruct the history of a primitive people who vanished a thousand years ago without leaving any written record of themselves, one is forced repeatedly to call upon the imagination. No matter how much data may be recovered or how accurately they may be interpreted, the story is almost certain to be otherwise incomplete. Trained eyes may read the secrets of broken pottery and fragmentary implements ; experienced hands may piece together scattered bits of information until the significance of the whole is apparent; but when immeasurable gaps occur, it may or may not be possible to bridge them. Through The Society's explorations the daily life of the prehistoric Bonitians has been at least partially reconstructed, but the impellent forces that hastened the abandonment of Pueblo Bonito and the |
