Artifacts

Artifacts found at Chimney Rock
The Chimney Rock Visitor Cabin does not have archival capability so the great number of artifacts found at the site are stored elsewhere. Some Chimney Rock artifacts are at the Colorado Historical Society Museum in Denver. A few are at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, CO. Similar artifacts from contemporaneous archaeological sites may be seen in several nearby museums: Aztec National Monument, Chaco Canyon, Salmon Ruin, Mesa Verde National Park, Hovenweep National Monument, Edge of the Cedars, and the Anasazi Heritage Center. Excavations at Chimney Rock found the following artifacts by location:

Great Kiva

  • Stone axe
  • Bone awl
  • Pottery pieces (decorated, corrugated, plain gray)

Pit House – Room 1

  • 4 very worn manos
  • Hafted side-notch axe
  • Paint grinder, lap anvils
  • Metate
  • Polishing stones

Pit House – Room 2

  • 13 dry liter corrugated jar
  • 5 very worn manos
  • Paint grinder
  • 2 lap anvils
  • 2 worn axe heads
  • 4 Prayer feather holders
  • Polishing stones
  • Drill bit
  • Double spouted bifurcated miniature plain gray jar
  • 4 sandstone slabs to seal large-mouthed corrugated jar
  • Solid ball of sun baked brown clay with thumb hole poked in it
  • Whetstone (grinding slab)

Pit House – Room 3

  • 5 good-sized pots, fairly intact, containing remains of corn, beans, wild edible seeds
  • Miniature high-necked corrugated jar
  • Sandstone slab to seal large-mouthed corrugated jar
  • 2 manos
  • Plank-covered cist contained charred corn

Pit House – Room 4

  • 3 choppers

Salvage Site

  • 2 Prayer feather holders
  • Corn mother fetish (tiponi)
  • Charred corn and beans

Ridge House

  • Manos and metate
  • Tusayan B/R trade sherds
  • Pueblo II painted corrugated and plain gray types of pottery

Rooms A and B

  • Axe head
  • Bone awl
  • 2 Prayer feather holders
  • Metate

Guard House

  • Clay bear fetish
  • Antler-made chisel
  • Charred basket
  • Axe head
  • Bone awls
  • Charred corn

Great House Pueblo

  • Abalone shell pendant
  • Large Bird water jar
  • Pottery jars
  • 2 turquoise ear pendants
  • Possible gambling die
  • Coiled baskets

Great House Pueblo – Room 8

  • 2 Charred baskets
  • Piedra black on white
  • Tusayan polychrome
  • 2 Mancos corrugated jars
  • Mancos black on white
  • Unidentified redware
  • Mancos corrugated bowl
  • Wetherill black on white
  • Payan corrugated
  • Charred wooden slab cover
  • Unidentified decorated
  • 2 Mesa Verde corrugated jars
  • Chaco black on white jar
  • San Juan white ware (slipped vessel)

Great House Pueblo- Room 9

  • 29 metates

Great House Pueblo- Room 5 (2011)

  • Orthoquartzite projectile point
  • Biface (possibly Alibates chert)
  • 6 groundstone artifacts
  • Grizzly bear mandible

Great House Pueblo- Room 7 (2011)

  • Burned corn and botanical materials (two strains of corn, grown locally); samples of corn braided together
    2 chalcedony projectile points
    9 groundstone artifacts, including: pieces of a large metate, a shaped pot lid, a one-handed mano, and a two-handed mano
    Corrugated gray jar (San Juan Gray Ware) built into floor

Note: Information taken from Archaeological Investigations at Chimney Rock Mesa:1970-1972, by Frank W. Eddy and Chimney Rock Stabilization Project, Chimney Rock Great House (5AA83), Archuleta County, Colorado, by Brenda K. Todd and Stephen H. Lekson (2011)