WALLACE RUIN INTERIM REPORT
(Published in Southwestern Lore,
Vol. 54, No. 2, pp.8-33, June 1988
Maps updated for internet use)
by
Bruce. A. Bradley
INTRODUCTION
Wallace Ruin (5MT6970) is a multistory, multicomponent, pueblo site
located near
A preliminary report (Bradley 1974) on the excavations at Wallace Ruin
contains additional locational and environmental information. Excavations have
been carried out by the author each year since 1969 with the occasional
assistance of volunteers. All structures that have been excavated have been
assigned feature numbers and will be referred to by these numbers in this
report. In addition, Dr. Charles Reher of the
Since 1969, twenty-nine rooms (14 ground story and 15 second story) and
three kivas have been excavated. Basic architectural and material culture
analyses have been done concurrently with the excavations and results of these
analyses have allowed a substantial revision of the interpretation of the site
since the initial report in 1974.
ARCHITECTURE
Four separate building episodes have been identified at Wallace Ruin
based on masonry styles, wall abutments, and architectural superposition. The
following summary includes all of the architectural units excavated since the
initial investigations begun in 1969.
Building
Phase 1- circa A.D. 1040
The earliest identified building phase is represented by three rooms, two
of which were two stories high (F-14 and F-15), and one possibly three stories
high (F-25) (Fig. 2). The masonry style in these rooms is spalled slab style
(see Bradley 1974:68, Fig. 5) and quite similar to Style 1 at
Ground story floors within these rooms were made of packed adobe with a
sandstone spall temper. Second story floors were produced by primary beams
spanning the room width and built into the walls topped by secondary beams,
which were supported by wall ledges. These were covered by a continuous layer
of split juniper shakes, which were in turn covered with a layer of adobe 5 to
10 cm thick. A layer of juniper bark was then laid on the adobe and was covered
with another layer of adobe 5 to 10 cm thick.
Ground story floor features included a slab lined hearth in F-15 and a
subfloor pit in F-25. Wall features included primary beam holes, a rectangular
doorway through the south wall of the ground story of F-25, a T-shaped doorway
through the east wall of the ground story of F-15, a T-shaped doorway in the
north wall of the second story of F-14, a doorway of undetermined form in the
south wall of the second story of F-15, and ventilation holes through the same
walls as the doorways.
In addition to the rooms that have been excavated, an estimate of at
least six additional ground floor rooms and a kiva is inferred. Various lines
of evidence are used to come to this conclusion. These are: (1) it was noted
that F-25 may have been three stories high; (2) it is extremely unlikely that
this room would have been free-standing and quite probable that it would have
been fronted by rooms of one or two stories; (3) a hearth, commonly associated
with front rooms (Windes 1984:76-78) was lacking; and (4) the doorway through
the south wall was rectangular, while many doors that open into plaza areas
(front rooms) a T-shaped (Stephen Lekson 1986, personal communication). It is
likely that one or more rooms fronted this one. In addition, spalled slab
masonry is present on the surface of the ruin east and south of F-25 indicating
at least another row of rooms running north-south. With all excavated rooms and
all inferred rooms counted, a total of twenty-one is estimated for this initial
building episode: one third story room, ten second story rooms, and ten ground
story rooms. A kiva south of these rooms is also postulated based on the site
layouts for other excavated sites of this type (Lekson 1984:68).
The spalled-slab masonry style has been assigned to the early Pueblo II
period between A.D. 1000 and 1075 in the Mesa Verde area (Hayes and Lancaster
1975:184) and to between A.D. 860 and 960 in the Chaco area (Lekson
1984:90-127). Several cutting dates have been recovered from F-25 from beams
derived from the top story ceiling. A total of 11 of these are A.D. 1045 while
additional dates of A.D. 1035, 1037, and 1071 were also included. It is unclear
at this time whether these dates represent the original construction of F-25 or
a remodeling episode. The presence of the latter dates may argue for
remodeling. This means that the date of construction could, and probably did, predate
A.D. 1045. It is my feeling that Phase I was initiated in the early A.D.
1000's.
Building
Phase 2- circa A.D. 1090
The second building episode is represented by a single two story room
(F-2). This was made by adding north and west walls to the outside northwest
corner of the existing pueblo (Fig. 3). The masonry style in these walls was
difficult to see because of a layer of very hard plaster that covered all of
the interior walls. The exterior of the west wall was exposed during the
excavation of F~7 and a very interesting style was observed. On the surface it
closely resembles the banded masonry style described at
Building
Phase 3- circa A.D. 1120
The third building episode at the site accounts for the majority of the
architectural units present at Wallace Ruin (Fig. 4). Ten two story rooms have
been excavated. Very little variation in the masonry style has been noted in
these rooms, and details of wall abutments and bonding clearly indicate that
all were built in a short time span. It was during this building episode that
the basic form of the final building was produced. The pattern and distribution
of the rooms and kivas clearly indicates that the building was constructed to a
preplanned form. It is basically U-shaped, has an enclosed plaza, and exhibits
near mirror-image symmetry along the north-south central axis. This floor plan
is similar to that of Wijiji in Chaco Canyon, which was constructed as a single
unit between A.D. 1115 and 1120 (Lekson 1984:224-230).
The organization of the rooms may be observed both by constructional
details and by access (Fig. 4). Features 5, 6, 8, and 9 were produced by the
internal partitioning of a larger room and were interconnected by doors on the
ground and second stories. Ground story access was gained through a second
story floor hatchway in the southeast corner of Feature 8 and access to the
entire suite of eight rooms could only be gained through a doorway through the
second story of the east wall of Feature 8. Nearly the same pattern is observed
in Features 18, 19, 26, and 27 except that entry was gained into the suite
through a large, floor-level, T-shaped door in the east wall of the ground story
of Feature 27.
The first step in the construction of Building Phase 3 walls was the
digging of trenches for foundations. These trenches were approximately 50 cm
deep and about as wide. The trenches were filled with large chunks of sandstone
and abundant mud. Walls were constructed on top of these footings. The masonry
is very carefully laid unshaped slabs of sandstone, which had one vertically
squared edge. This edge was laid flush with the exterior surface of the wall
with any irregular edge(s) on the interior (see Bradley 1974:68, Fig. 4). The
same was done with the opposite side of the wall producing a compound masonry
(Lekson 1984:21). Areas in the centers of the walls that were not occupied by
parts of facing stones were filled up with mortar and small pieces of
sandstone. Very thin layers of mortar were placed between the courses, only
enough to even out surface irregularities of the building stones. Thin pieces
of load-bearing sandstone were often used for chinking. Wall stones were laid
so that they overlapped substantially from course to course and often from face
to face. This assured very good bonding. These walls are uniformly 50 cm thick
and only a small amount of taper has been noted from the base to the tops of
walls standing half way up the second story. Corner bonding was achieved in
several different ways. One way was to have one wall abutting the other for the
height of the ground story and then for them to switch around on the second
story. Another was for the walls to be alternately abutted every 5 to 10
courses. Yet another method was for one wall to abut another all the way up
with only a single rock extending into it in four or five places for the entire
height of the wall. No clear pattern of these wall bonding techniques has yet been
noted and any one or several may be present in the same room, with different
styles even noted on opposite sides of the same wall.
This masonry style most closely resembles Type IV masonry at
Ground story floors were well made of sandstone tempered adobe and
contained occasional floor features such as pits and hearths. Second story
floors were also well made with a very consistent constructional sequence. One
or two vigas spanned the width of rooms and were built into the walls during
wall construction. Smaller beams (latillas) were built into the walls at the
end of the rooms in more or less even spacing. These secondary beams had their
large ends in the wall and extended across the vigas but seldom reached the far
wall. Additional beams were also occasionally laid across the central viga,
strengthening the center of the floor. This level was entirely covered with a
layer of juniper shakes laid perpendicularly to the latillas. A 5 to 10 cm
thick layer of adobe was then placed on the split wood level, followed by a
thin layer of juniper bark laid perpendicularly to the shakes. All of this was
topped with another layer of adobe. The only floor features found on the second
story have been a slab-lined hearth in F-26 and a hatchway in the southeast
corner of F-8.
Room uses are not clearly identifiable from artifact assemblages or
architectural details in Features 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 17. None of these rooms
contained hearths or other evidence of domestic activity. Feature 18 does not
contain a hearth; whereas Features 19, 26, and 27, which are interconnected
with it, do contain hearths and ovens (Windes 1984:77).
Since these rooms are all two stories high a total of twenty rooms have
actually been excavated. In addition to these, two large kivas are known along
with an estimated twenty-six additional ground story rooms, which may be
doubled for the second story. Although no excavations have occurred on the east
side of the pueblo, the height of the rubble mound above the existing ground surface
indicates that it is possible that there is at least one line of three story
rooms, adding around ten rooms to the total count. This building phase,
therefore, included from between seventy-four and eighty-two rooms and two
kivas. Tree ring samples have been analyzed from several of the rooms and have
yielded non-cutting dates in the middle to late A.D. 1000's and early A.D.
1100's. All were juniper and the number of probable missing rings indicates
that construction probably occurred in the first or second decade of the A.D. l
l00's (William Robinson 1982, pers. comm.).
Building
Phase 4- circa A.D. 1250-1275
Building Phase 4 is represented, to date, by a single key-hole shaped
kiva (F-I), a partition wall on the second story of F-27, and two intermural
kivas (Fig. 5). In addition, several holes were broken through ground story
walls of the previous building phase, a doorway was constructed through the
ground story wall between F-18 and F-26, and a number of doorways and
ventilation holes were walled up. All of the masonry of this building phase has
been simple and was made from whatever blocks were readily available. None of
the building blocks exhibits the dimpled surfaces common to the region in the thirteenth
century (Rohn 1977). The final construction phase at Cahone House in
CEREMONIAL ARCHITECTURE
Although three thirteenth century kivas have been excavated, there is no
direct evidence that they served primarily as ritual structures. It is also not
clear that they were primarily domestic. Two other features, interpreted as
having served ritual functions, have been found in rooms. The first was a pile
of building stones located in the second story floor fall, centrally located
along the north wall in F-5. The concentrated nature of this pile of stones and
the occurrence of a conical shaped sandstone artifact, sometimes referred to as
a maize deity (Cattanach 1980), on top of it indicates that this may represent
an altar or shrine that originally rested on the second story floor. Another
unusual concentration of construction materials was located in the lower fill
of the ground story of F-15. This consisted of a jumble of modeled clay
brick-like objects, which did not exhibit any normal constructional impressions
of beams or shakes. Instead they were smoothed on one or more faces and/or
sides with the remaining sides being broken surfaces. Three of these clay
"bricks" are decorated on their surfaces with punctated designs. Two
are parallel zig-zag line designs and one is a human figure with turkey track
feet and is positioned in a dancing configuration. In addition, an unfired adobe
plume holder Judd 1954:293-924) was recovered. Along with this there were
several mudware miniature vessel fragments. All of these objects together
indicate that they may originally have been part of an alter.