Many references are found to Basketmaker “mummies”. It is quite true that, due to the aridity of the climate and the protection offered by the shelters, which make it difficult for the bacteria of decay to survive, many of the bodies were “mummified” with the dehydrated flesh still on the bones and the hair looking much as it did in life. These must not be confused with Egyptian mummies, however, which were preserved by artificial means and highly specialized techniques. It is simply a happy accident that these people buried their dead in places which permitted the preservation of their bodies. [Illustration: Fig. 6—Basketmaker mummy. (Courtesy Peabody Museum, Harvard University.)] Probably, though, in the Southwest as in ancient Egypt, belief in a life after death is shown by the mortuary offerings placed in the graves. With the bodies are found baskets, food, weapons, and various personal possessions. With almost every corpse is found a pair of new, unworn sandals. This would suggest that they were not a possession of the deceased but a special offering which, it is logical to assume, was designed for use in a later life. We may now return to the Basketmaker culture as archaeologists have reconstructed it from the evidence which they have painstakingly dug out of the dust and ashes of rock shelters which had not echoed with the sound of human activity for many centuries. The problems which these ancient people faced stagger the imagination of modern man. They had no metal, no pottery, no cotton or wool, no draught animals. Really all they did have was their own ingenuity to wrest the necessities of life from a none too favorable environment. It is remarkable how, by utilizing wood, bone, stone, plant fibers, and even their own hair, they not only produced all that they needed to survive, but also provided a base from which arose the high culture which culminated in the great communal dwellings of later times. Were we able to project ourselves back into the time of the Basketmakers and watch the people of that day we should find men and women not too different from many Indians of today. The Basketmakers were rather short. They had coarse, black hair which, while straight, had slightly more of a tendency to waviness than that of present day Indians. Their skins were brown and they had little body hair.