The
Lost
City Reconstruction
The Virgin Anasazi used local materials to construct their housing and storage facilities.
The remains of these structures were found throughout the lower Moapa Valley.
They are usually built on the sides of a mesa-like hill. Besides having a
strategic view, these places seem to be more livable than the valley floor.
|
|
|
 The sites referred to here
are probably 11, 12, 13, and 14 as listed on Plate 26 in Shutler's Lost City monograph.
(1) These sites were located just south of the airport and cemetery in Overton.
All these sites are within a mile of each other and based on the surface
materials found at each site (prior to the damage from construction and other
factors), we could think that a) because of the similarities in the typological characteristics
of the pottery; b) the chert and obsidian debitage and almost everything found
on the surface at these sites; c) the degree of morphological change of
the surfaces at these places both in and around the structures; that these sites
were contemporaneous.
|
 This possibility is important because the construction
regimen appears to be slightly different from what is shown at the museum. The
museum no doubt based their reconstructions of some the photos from the
Southwest Museum such as those shown in The Lost City monograph on Plates 31,
bottom 32, 33, 34, 36. These plates show a construction technique which was no
doubt
the basis for much of the structure construction in the part of the Moapa Valley
which the Pueblo Grande was in.
The structures observed at sites 11, 12 and 13 were seen to be slightly
different in method of construction.
|
 The 'bottom' course of each wall had at
least a row of uniformly shaped, lenticular, usually quartzite, river rocks that
were set on end, end to end in rows parallel to what would be the outer surface
of the wall. It was suggested (by someone who's name will mercifully not be
mentioned) that this was done to keep rodents out of the 'granaries'. Being
uncertain about the storage technology which the Virgin Anasazi had we can't say
much more than the nature of rodents is such that if there is any large opening,
rats and mice
do not usually make a 'back door'.
|
|
