Perishable: Cornhusk Basket AMNH 29.0-7718

Cornhusk Basket, Accession AMNH29.0, Catalog #7718. Morris FS 1311. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Openwork basket with cornhusk lining, and knotted, twisted, yucca network. Images: AMNH 29.0-7718A: flattened cornhusk basket. AMNH 29.0-7718B: view of possible rim finish. AMNH 29.0-7718C: close-up of yucca wrapping. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room 48, Aztec West Ruin. Earl Morris’ description of Room 48 at the time of excavation is as follows. “The floor was covered with refuse.. The greater proportion of this deposit was of vegetable substance; cornstalks, husks, tassels, and cobs, cedarbark, splinters of the same wood, as well as human excrement. This deposit of Chaco age had been completely protected from moisture and constituted, aside from some found in the caves of Del Muerto canyon, the richest repository for perishable artifacts that has come within the experience of the writer. Above this sand had worked down through the second floor before the timbers supporting the latter had failed. These had fallen in recent times, after the mound had reached its final form, as evidenced by the ragged crater left by the settling of the debris above them subsequent to their collapse” (Morris 1928:307-308).
Reference: Earl Morris, 1928, Notes on Excavations in the Aztec Ruin, Volume XXVI, Part V, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, New York.