Probably, even without having any utensils which would seem suitable for cooking to us, it was possible for the Basketmakers to cook a variety of foods by boiling or stewing. To speak of boiling foods when the only available container is a basket may seem incredible but it can be done. The Basketmakers, as their name implies, made many baskets. These were remarkably fine and often so closely woven as to make suitable receptacles for liquids. Even though the baskets could hold water, however, the problem remains as to how they could be heated, since the baskets obviously could not be subjected to fire. The technique employed by other people faced with the same problem has been to drop hot stones into the liquid, replacing them with other hot stones as they cool, until the necessary temperature is achieved. Skin receptacles can also be used in the same way. In Basketmaker sites are found scooplike wooden objects, charred, and with worn edges. They are excellent digging implements and were probably used in digging cists, but the charring suggests that they may have been used in pairs to lift hot rocks from the fire and drop them into baskets or skin bags in which food was being stewed. The most distinctive feature of the Basketmaker culture, as is implied by the name, was the making of basketry. Most baskets were made by the coiled technique in which a basket is built up from the base by a growing spiral coil. As the basket progresses, each coil is sewed to the one below with a thin splint. The coil itself consists of two rods, usually willow, and a bundle of fibrous material. In sewing the coils together a bone awl is used to pass the splint through the fiber bundle. [Illustration: Fig. 10—Weaving techniques. a. coiling, b. twining, c. twilling.] The most common basket forms were shallow trays anywhere from three inches to three feet in diameter. Smaller baskets tended to be deeper than the larger models. There were also bowl forms, with steeply flaring sides and flat bottoms, which may have been used for cooking. Small baskets with restricted openings, which are called trinket baskets, were probably used to store seeds and small objects. Two distinctive forms are carrying and water baskets. Both are large, with flaring sides and pointed bottoms. Water baskets had smaller constricted openings, presumably to keep the water from splashing out. They were lined with pitch made of pinyon gum. Some of the other baskets are so tightly woven as to hold water, but these specialized forms were specially treated, possibly because water was kept in them for a sufficiently long time that, without the protection of the pitch, they would have become water-logged and lost their usefulness.