{"id":"SKINNER2016-001","label":"Lizard Cave cache roarer","people_or_site":"Lizard Cave (NP2), north Ponil Canyon","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"New Mexico / Colfax County / north Ponil Canyon","macroregion":"North America / Southwest","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bullroarer recovered from a historic rockshelter cache.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"skinner2016_lizard_cave_table3","source_type":"archaeological_report","source_url":"https://archaeologicalsocietynm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/42-brown.ej-et-al-2016-asnm-collected-papers-history-and-archaeology-connecting-the-dots-papers-in-honor-of-david-h.-snow.pdf","page_or_plate":"Skinner2016 Table3 p.227; p.225; bibliography p.237. Schroeder1976 p.80.","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Regional lower-North-Ponil drainage anchor only, approximately20km uncertainty; not a cave-mouth or excavation coordinate. Rounded from the NM Environment Department station North Ponil Creek above South Ponil Creek,36.588056/-104.965556,NAD83 (Water Quality Portal21NMEX_WQX-05NPonil000.1). Published site accounts place Lizard Cave in north Ponil Canyon but supply no surveyed cave position.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"This bullroarer survived because the shelter stayed dry. It was cached with other perishable things, a notched rasp, a yucca fireboard, a mat of willow shoots and a cluster of wheat seeds, in a low rockshelter in north Ponil Canyon, long after Puebloan people had lived there. Its owners were probably Ute, perhaps Jicarilla Apache.\n\nBoth peoples knew this country, and both knew the instrument. The Moache Ute had moved down into northeastern New Mexico before settlers reached Colorado. Saparits, a Moache elder who lived at Cimarron until about the age of forty, said the bullroarer was a plaything, but also made the wind blow and cleared the clouds away; in other Ute bands it answered only to someone born in summer. Among the Llanero Jicarilla it was fifteen inches of wood on three feet of cord, swung by men and boys while women were free to watch.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"assemblage","date_display":"Undated","date_qualification":"Historic cache; manufacture and deposition dates unknown.","date_basis":"undated_terminus","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"Skinner2016 Table3 p.227; bibliography p.237 citing Skinner1964.","sources":[{"citation":"S. Alan Skinner, Crevice Burials and Tipi Rings on the Southern Great Plains, Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico 42 (2016), pp.217–237; Table3 p.227.","url":"https://archaeologicalsocietynm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/42-brown.ej-et-al-2016-asnm-collected-papers-history-and-archaeology-connecting-the-dots-papers-in-honor-of-david-h.-snow.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240621144357/https://archaeologicalsocietynm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/42-brown.ej-et-al-2016-asnm-collected-papers-history-and-archaeology-connecting-the-dots-papers-in-honor-of-david-h.-snow.pdf"},{"citation":"A.H.Schroeder, The prehistory of northeastern New Mexico, New Mexico Geological Society Guidebook27 (1976), pp.77–82, especially p.80.","url":"https://nmgs.nmt.edu/publications/guidebooks/downloads/27/27_p0077_p0082.pdf"},{"citation":"Omer C. Stewart, Culture Element Distributions: XVIII, Ute–Southern Paiute, Anthropological Records 6(4) (1942), pp. 236–239, 291","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/83548","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013023604/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/83548"},{"citation":"E. W. Gifford, Culture Element Distributions: XII, Apache-Pueblo, Anthropological Records 4(1) (1940), pp. 58–59, 151–152","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84148/files/ucar004-002.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013035153/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84148/files/ucar004-002.pdf"}],"source_citations":"S. Alan Skinner, Crevice Burials and Tipi Rings on the Southern Great Plains, Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico 42 (2016), pp.217–237; Table3 p.227.; A.H.Schroeder, The prehistory of northeastern New Mexico, New Mexico Geological Society Guidebook27 (1976), pp.77–82, especially p.80.; Omer C. Stewart, Culture Element Distributions: XVIII, Ute–Southern Paiute, Anthropological Records 6(4) (1942), pp. 236–239, 291; E. W. Gifford, Culture Element Distributions: XII, Apache-Pueblo, Anthropological Records 4(1) (1940), pp. 58–59, 151–152","source_display":"S. Alan Skinner, Crevice Burials and Tipi Rings on the Southern Great Plains, Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico 42 (2016), pp.217–237; Table3 p.227.; A.H.Schroeder, The prehistory of northeastern New Mexico, New Mexico Geological Society Guidebook27 (1976), pp.77–82, especially p.80.; Omer C. Stewart, Culture Element Distributions: XVIII…","date_citation_display":"Skinner2016 Table3 p.227; bibliography p.237 citing Skinner1964.","object_display":"Bullroarer recovered from a historic rockshelter cache.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"lizard cave","display_name":"Lizard Cave cache roarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_15/VANSTONE1961-001_fmnh60974_fig37f.png","thumb":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_15/thumbs/VANSTONE1961-001_fmnh60974_fig37f_thumb.png","alt":"Northern Ute bullroarer 60974, collected by George A. Dorsey in 1900: a flat blade with a long buckskin line bent into a large angular loop above it.","credit":"Field Museum of Natural History (60974; negative 113080), via Biodiversity Heritage Library","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 3.0","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/ethnographiccoll28vans","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Northern Ute bullroarer with buckskin cord, collected in 1900.","pool_id":"great-basin-ute-buckskin-line"},"slug":"skinner2016-001-lizard-cave-np2-north-ponil-canyon"}