Implements and utensils found in the houses of these people include such objects as stone metates and manos for grinding corn, hammers, knives, drills, bone awls and needles, baskets, and many ornaments of shell and turquoise, often carved in bird and animal forms. Items missing from the pre-Spanish Indian culture include metals, livestock, wheeled vehicles, and writing. Life in the Sinagua pueblos of the Verde, though lacking the variety found in a modern city, had more of natural beauty and simplicity. Like any other people, the Sinagua would not have selected this spot for their homes if the necessities of their everyday life had not been present. In this region, their needs were filled by a good water supply, bottomlands for farming, wild berries and edible shrubs, game for meat, and materials for buildings, pottery, and tools. In addition, they had one thing which most Indians in Arizona had to travel great distances to obtain—a large deposit of salt. This they mined a few miles southwest of present-day Camp Verde where their collapsed tunnels can be traced even today. Occasionally the handle of a stone pick may still be seen projecting from a collapsed tunnel. Many bits of matting and unburned torches that the Indians apparently used for lighting their tunnels have been recovered. In 1928 several well-preserved Indian bodies were removed from one of these mines where they had been trapped when one of the tunnels caved in. The Sinagua also were fortunate in having a deposit of a red rock called argillite not too far away. From this material they fashioned stone pendants, beads, earrings, and other ornaments with which they adorned themselves. To satisfy their vanity further, the Indians imported luxuries not available in this area. Bracelets, pendants, beads, rings, and inlay made from shell were acquired by trade with tribes to the south who obtained the shell from the Gulf of California. The Sinagua also bartered for turquoise pendants, earrings, beads, and inlay pieces from other groups. Probably their greatest trade was in pottery. These Sinagua Indians rarely decorated their pottery, and judging by the quantity of painted pieces recovered from their sites, they engaged in lively trade for the wares of their northeastern neighbors. One might say that they imported their “china” in quantity. Through a study of this pottery we find that from about 1150 to 1250, decorated pieces were obtained from the Indians in the north, near modern Flagstaff. Some of this pottery the Sinagua retraded to the Hohokam around present-day Phoenix. (How many of us today would be successful in taking dishes over a distance of 200 miles on foot without breaking a goodly portion?) After 1250, due to depopulation east of the Flagstaff area, the people of the Verde Valley obtained decorated pottery from the region farther east, around modern Winslow; and also, farther north, from the present Hopi Indian reservation area.