Research Results
This section summarizes the results of the three seasons of Yellow Jacket Pueblo research, including mapping, disturbance assessment, Great Tower Complex, site chronology, human remains, and Native American consultation. These results are preliminary, as analyses are not yet complete.
Mapping
One research goal was to produce an accurate map of the portion of Yellow Jacket Pueblo owned by The Archaeological Conservancy. The mapping was partly funded by a grant from the Colorado Historical Society. Previous maps of the site (Ferguson and Rohn 1987:129; Lange et al. 1986) are incomplete, and are inaccurate. During Crow Canyon's research, the site was mapped using a total station mapping instrument and computer drafting program (AutoCAD) (Figure 3).
In addition to reaching the original research goal, supplementary data were gathered on portions of the site not owned by The Archaeological Conservancy. With the generous permission from the various landowners--Margory Gai, Jack Hawkins, Clem Honaker, James Honaker, Joe Tipton, and Arthur Wilson--all visible architectural features were mapped on the five additional privately-owned parcels of the site, and test excavations occurred on one of those parcels on the talus slope. The cultural features on four of these parcels had never been mapped. These supplemental data were recovered in order to produce a more complete site map and gain a more complete record of site chronology. These data are critical for making inferences regarding the quantity and variety of architecture present, site layout, population of the site, and the roles of the numerous water control features.
In addition, aerial photographs were employed to produce a 30-cm-contour-interval topographic map, and to establish the presence and location of roads associated with the great kiva. One probable road, defined by a berm and a swale on the northwest edge of the great kiva, linked the great kiva with an architectural block 240 meters to the northwest.
The process of mapping revealed that the site covers a substantially larger area than has ever been reported. The site actually occupies approximately 100 acres of land (cf. Glowacki and Kuckelman 1996). Most of the site is on a point of land bounded on three sides by cliffs cut by two creeks that converge at the south end of the site. In addition, a substantial portion of the site is on the talus slopes at the base of the cliffs. Current estimates of the number of architectural features visible at modern ground surface for the entire site include a minimum of 42 roomblocks containing approximately 600 rooms, 192 kivas, one great kiva, 18 towers, one biwall tower kiva, five dams, and one large reservoir. Smaller features such as monoliths, petroglyphs, and isolated extramural walls and checkdams were also mapped.
The northern boundary of the site is defined by the northernmost extent of building rubble and surface artifact scatters. This includes the cluster of artifacts and rubble that was previously recorded in the 1980's as a separate site, 5MT5771 (Figure 3). The northeast boundary roughly follows the upslope portion of a small drainage that bisects the Great Tower Complex. The southeast, south and west edges of the site are defined by the water in the bottom of two creeks. These boundaries are somewhat arbitrary because rubble is also present on the canyon floor and on the talus slopes on the other side of the streams. Defining site boundaries is problematic, as there are other sites in the immediate vicinity (Lange et al. 1986:Figure 12), and it is not clear what the relationship is between the architecture across the stream and that in the core of 5MT5. The boundaries described above also include the features originally recorded as site 5MT7, which is architecture associated with a small cliff overhang just below the southeast canyon rim, north of Architectural Block 3500.
Most visible rubble mounds at the site date from the Pueblo III period, are generally linear, and are oriented east-west. The exceptions to this are architectural blocks 100 and 200 near the south end of the point, which are oriented northeast to southwest. The reasons for this difference in orientation are not clear. Perhaps the difference in orientation took better advantage of a narrow, northeast-southwest ridgeline that would have afforded the most imposing height for the finished building. Exaggerated building height was apparently valued, and was observed in the Architectural Block 200 roomblock test pit, where a Pueblo III masonry wall was constructed directly on top of a well-preserved earlier wall. This construction resulted in the tallest rubble mound at the site. Alternatively, the shift in orientation could have been to effect some sort of astronomical or other significant alignment (Malville and Putnam 1989).
There is a very low room-to-kiva ratio at Yellow Jacket Pueblo, compared to other ancestral Pueblo sites in the region, and even compared to other Pueblo III sites in the region (see Lipe 1989). The overall ratio of rooms to kivas at the site appears to be 3:1, or 600 rooms to approximately 200 kivas. Roomblock by roomblock, the ratio varies from a low of 1:1 at the Great Tower Complex, one of the latest structures at Yellow Jacket, to a high of 4:1 elsewhere on the site. The highest ratio of rooms to kivas may be in Roomblock 1900, which is the roomblock associated with the great kiva. It is difficult to estimate the number of rooms in this block, because it was multistory and because the eastern part of this roomblock was largely destroyed in recent times. However, there were clearly more than four rooms present originally, and only one kiva depression was observed within this roomblock. We believe that this roomblock is a Chaco-style structure that dates to the late Pueblo II period. If this is true, this roomblock may have been among the earliest on the site (see Chronology section below). The room-to-kiva ratio thus appears to be quite low overall at the site, and might have become lower throughout the occupation of the site. It is likely that this shift toward lower room-to-kiva ratios reflects a change in the way kivas and rooms were being used. The significance of this change is not well understood at present (Lipe 1989).
Disturbance Assessment
The nature and extent of disturbance on the portion of the site owned by The Archaeological Conservancy was assessed, and was reported on in a site management and protection plan (Kuckelman and Glowacki 1995). Over the past century, there have been several types of disturbances at the site, including livestock grazing, rock collecting, quarrying fill for road construction, farming, and undocumented digging to collect artifacts.
Prior to 1995, livestock grazed on all areas of the site, including that owned by the Conservancy. In 1995 Crow Canyon staff completed a fence that excluded livestock from the Conservancy property.
The north end of the site has been cleared and cultivated, and several wagonloads of rocks were reportedly removed from the field during clearing. A multistory roomblock which was the east wing of Roomblock 1900 is reported to have been removed by a rock crusher to procure material for road maintenance in the mid-1940's (Arthur Wilson, personal communication, 1995).
Crow Canyon's assessment of disturbance to the site included mapping and recording 805 potholes on Conservancy land (Glowacki and Kuckelman 1996). Most of these potholes were likely the result of non-professional excavators digging for human burials that contained whole pots. According to Wilson (1990), Joe Ben Wheat estimated that at least 500 burials have been dug at this site. Masonry wall faces exposed by non-professional excavation were photographed and recorded on standardized, computer coding forms.
The Great Tower Complex (Architectural Block 1200) is located on the west rim of a canyon at the northeast edge of the site. Three seasons of intensive testing in the Great Tower Complex documented the effects of the previous excavation of that roomblock, and resulted in the salvage of an impressive quantity of data on this important architectural block. Several lines of evidence indicate that the previous excavation occurred in 1931 by Western State College (Hurst and Lotrich 1932), including an eye-witness account (Arthur Wilson, personal communication, 1995) of a group of seven to ten men digging in that roomblock during the summer of 1931 or 1932. The men had two or three wagons and horses with them, which stood out in Wilson's memory because most people were driving cars by then.
Great Tower Complex
The Great Tower Complex dates from late Pueblo III, as evidenced by numerous Mesa Verde Black-on-white vessels recovered by Hurst and Lotrich (1932), and by a recently-collected tree-ring sample from the Great Tower that dated 1254 +vv (see Chronology section below). The block wraps around a spring in a squared-off U layout, with the open side to the canyon edge, or south-southeast. The structure contains approximately 12 kivas, 10 rooms, four towers, four dams and an oversized kiva, which is inside a two-story biwall structure. See the "1997 Field Season" section above for descriptions and interpretations of individual structures in this architectural block.
This architectural block was built on bedrock, which necessitated the blocking-in of the kivas inside rectangular or square rooms. The biwall is located at the northwest corner of the U, and the towers are located at the southwest end of the U, the west side of the spring, the east side of the spring, and the southeast end of the U (Figure 5). On the talus slope immediately below this structure is an additional associated blocked-in kiva and a boulder-top structure.
Most of the Great Tower Complex is located west of the spring, and very little testing was done east of the spring. The following discussion refers to the L-shaped portion of the block west of the spring. The towers, which are at the two ends of the L, and the biwall, which is at the corner of the L, appear to have been the first structures built, and the spaces between these structures were then filled in with preplanned blocks of rectangular cells constructed of double-coursed masonry walls. Some of these cells were left rectangular and became rooms, such as Structure 1208, which contains metate bins (Glowacki 1997). However, in most of the cells, curved masonry bench faces were then constructed to simulate traditional kiva architecture. The cells containing kivas nearest the biwall structure were probably two stories tall, considering the preserved height of the walls. In these kivas, curved upper lining walls were also constructed inside the cell walls. In the cells containing kivas that appeared to have been one story tall, the straight cell walls served as upper lining walls above the benches.
The drainage containing the spring bisects the Great Tower Complex had four dams across it, one just above the spring, and three in close succession just below the spring. Each successive dam down the drainage appears to be constructed more crudely and of larger rocks than the one before. These dams were apparently an effort to slow the flow of spring water and of runoff coming down the drainage, and to help control and restrict access to this water. Alignments of small rubble were documented north and east of the architectural block. These alignments might be remnants of larger berms that channeled or diverted water away from the structure walls and toward the dams, where the water could accumulate into usable pools.
As previously mentioned, this architectural block continues down from the canyon rim onto the talus slope nearly to the bottom of the canyon drainage. The canyon is very shallow in this location, so this is not a great distance, horizontally or vertically, but this arrangement of architecture relative to the water sources is significant nonetheless in terms of controlling access to water in the stream.
Site Chronology
A great deal of data pertaining to site chronology was amassed during the three years of research at Yellow Jacket Pueblo. These data are in the form of tree-ring dates, architectural style, stratigraphy, pottery recovered during testing, and curated pottery collections.
An insignificant quantity cultural material dating earlier than late Pueblo II (i.e., pre-AD1050) that was recovered during testing at the site, and is not considered to be evidence of habitation. Late Pueblo II (AD1050-1150) construction (primarily non-masonry) occurred at the site. At least two episodes of Pueblo III masonry construction occurred, the later of which occurred in the mid- to late 1200s. It is possible that there was one continuous occupation of the site from late Pueblo II through Pueblo III, but this cannot be confirmed without further analyses.
Few tree-ring samples were recovered during testing, unfortunately. Four samples collected during the 1995 season were successfully dated; no 1996 samples were datable. A few additional samples that were recovered during the 1997 season await analysis.
A tree-ring sample from midden deposits in Structure 704 (a pitstructure of unknown type south of Roomblock 700) yielded a non-cutting date of 974 vv. This indicates only that the sample was deposited into the pitstructure depression an unknown length of time after AD 974. The other three dates are from samples recovered in the Great Tower Complex, from structures that had been previously excavated and backfilled (see Disturbance Assessment section above). A sample recovered from Structure 1206 yielded the only cutting date from the site--1101 B. This is interpreted to be a reused beam from a nearby site or an earlier structure on this site. Two samples from Structure 1213, the east biwall room, were dated to 1095 +vv, and 1235 vv. This indicates that this structure, or more likely, an adjacent structure, was constructed an unknown length of time after AD 1235. A sample from Structure 1201, the Great Tower itself, dated 1254 +vv, suggesting that this or an adjacent structure was built an unknown length of time after AD 1254. All of these results are consistent with the occurrence of Pueblo II and Pueblo III pottery and architecture at the site.
Architectural style was also used to determine site chronology. Pueblo II-style architecture, i.e., earth-walled pitstructure construction with associated late Pueblo II pottery, was recorded in the northern portion of the site beneath Roomblock 900. A posthole originating at a surface beneath the level of the masonry architecture was recorded in this same area of the site. The crudest masonry structure observed during testing was beneath Roomblock 200 near the south end of the site; the fill contained Pueblo II pottery. Light rubble scatters at the far north end of the site in the alfalfa field consisted of small, unshaped stones and were associated with late Pueblo II/early Pueblo III pottery.
Also possibly constructed during the late Pueblo II period are the great kiva and the associated high rubble mound (Roomblock 1900) near the north end of the site. These structures were mapped, but were not tested, as they are not located on Conservancy land. The roomblock has been referred to as "Chacoan" due to the height of the rubble mound, the compact layout of the block, the associated great kiva, and the possible road that extends southward down the ridge from the great kiva. An additional possible road, indicated by a swale and accentuated at its south end by a linear berm extends to the northwest from the great kiva, and links the kiva with the Roomblock 4200 rubble mound 240 meters to the northwest. The height of the Roomblock 1900 rubble mound suggests an original structure of either two or three stories. A rubble mound reported to have been even taller is shown as the east section of Roomblock 1900, which was almost completely removed in the mid-1940's and used for county road material (Arthur Wilson, personal communication, 1995).
Most of the architecture at the site was Pueblo III style and was associated with Pueblo III pottery. Rubble mounds from Pueblo III masonry construction are visible from modern ground surface across much of the site, although the height of the rubble mounds and the preserved height of the masonry walls vary widely. As exposed in test units, the preserved portions of the masonry walls in the northeast area of the site (Architectural Blocks 800, 900, 1000, 1100, and 2100) are, on the whole, shorter than those in the central and southern portions of the site. Some of this variation is no doubt a result of the differences in the original heights of the roomblocks. It is also possible that some blocks, such as the northeastern roomblocks, were constructed earlier than others, such as the central and southern roomblocks, and that the earlier masonry was salvaged for later construction at the site. Perhaps the roomblocks in the northeastern area of the site were largely dismantled to procure material for the nearby construction of the Great Tower Complex, which is one of the latest constructions at the site.
The stratigraphy at the site was consistent with Pueblo II occupation and Pueblo III occupation. Pueblo III use surfaces and deposits were ubiquitous across the tested portions of the site. Evidence of a Pueblo II occupation was found in material deposited prior to the construction of some masonry roomblocks, below the level of the wall bases. Evidence of Pueblo II occupation consisting of: 1) a stratum of pre-roomblock deposits; or 2) a pre-roomblock surface with associated feature; or 3) midden with a predominance of Pueblo II pottery, was documented during testing of architectural blocks 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 900, 2100, 2400, and 2600, or ten of the seventeen tested mesa top roomblocks.
Testing indicated that Pueblo III pottery is present across the site, and that late Pueblo II pottery (Mancos) is present in most areas. This season's testing below the canyon rim on the talus slope near the south-southwest edge of the site has shown that there was a substantial amount of Pueblo II activity in this area of the site. Although analysis of these artifacts is not complete, initial assessment is that even though Pueblo III pottery is present on the tested area of the talus slope, this area contains much more Pueblo II material than expected. The expectation was that the talus slope would have been one of the last areas occupied, based on the talus slope sites tested as part of the Site Testing Program in the Sand Canyon Locality (Varien 1997). The Yellow Jacket data thus suggest that the talus slope was inhabited earlier in the Yellow Jacket community than it was in the Sand Canyon Community.
Wilshusen's (1996) search of museum collections identified some vessels recovered from this site during non-professional excavations of burials. This documentation associates 115 funerary vessels with specific architectural blocks at the site, including blocks located on untested parcels of the site. The traditional type identifications need verification, but these data show that the vessels recovered from the site were manufactured from late Pueblo II through Pueblo III periods--primarily Mancos, McElmo and Mesa Verde Black-on-white types. The vessels were recovered from burials as far north as Architectural Block 3100, and as far south as Architectural Block 2500, with no discernible spatial clustering of graves by traditional pottery type or time period. There are no records of grave goods from the talus slope. Time of interment is assumed to be the period during which the associated vessel or vessels were produced in the cases where only one traditional type was recovered from a grave. One difficulty with using these data to build site chronology is that time of interment does not necessarily reflect time of construction and occupation of an architectural block. A midden might have been used for interments any time during the occupation of a roomblock, or even long after the associated roomblock was abandoned.
Vessels of more than one traditional type were reportedly recovered from several graves (Wilshusen 1996:Table 2). In those cases, interment is interpreted to have occurred sometime after the latest traditional type had begun to be produced. In other words, a body associated with a Mancos Black-on-white vessel and a Mesa Verde Black-on-white vessel is interpreted to have been interred sometime in the late AD 1100's or the 1200's, when Mesa Verde Black-on-white was produced. The occurrence of graves containing multiple traditional types may indicate uninterrupted occupation of the site beginning during the manufacture of Mancos vessels, and continuing through the advent of Mesa Verde vessels, since one would assume that a minimum number of vessels were transported during habitation relocations.
Human Remains at Yellow Jacket Pueblo
No intact burials or funerary goods were encountered during Crow Canyon's testing at Yellow Jacket Pueblo, though some isolated and scattered bones were encountered. All human remains encountered during testing were handled with care and treated with respect. The few human remains encountered were disarticulated, primarily as a result of non-professional disturbance in historic times. A few concentrations of human bone were documented, but most bones were scattered. Concentrations of bones were exposed, mapped, photographed, analyzed in the field, and then re-covered with sediment in their original locations. Scattered bones were mapped, and then transported to the lab at Crow Canyon to be analyzed. Analysis was performed by physical anthropologists, Dr. Debra Martin and Cynthia Bradley, in compliance with our State of Colorado Historical Permit No. 95-42. All human bones collected during excavations were reinterred into the same excavation units from which they were removed. Although all human bone has now been analyzed, the interpetive report is not yet complete.
Native American Consultation
On 8 May 1995, four Hopi individuals visited Yellow Jacket Pueblo for the express purpose of evaluating Crow Canyon's plans for research there (Glowacki and Kuckelman 1996). The group consisted of the Historic Preservation Office Representative and three members of the Hopi Cultural Advisory Group. The group walked over the portion of the site owned by The Archaeological Conservancy with Kristin Kuckelman (Project Director) and Ricky Lightfoot (Principal Investigator). There were discussions of how human remains are contributing to our understanding of what happened in the past and how human remains might contribute to the identification of genetic/ethnic affiliation. Discussions also included land ownership, history of non-professional excavation, and Crow Canyon's research interests. The group followed the canyon rim from the northwest around to the northeast to look for possible shrines. Two U-shaped features were identified as special features, but the Hopi representatives indicated that these were probably not shrines.
The recommendations made by the Hopi representatives as a result of this pre-excavation consultation were: 1) to work to educate private landowners on the importance of the sites; 2) to find a way to keep livestock off the site; 3) to report any human remains that were encountered to the Hopi, even though NAGPRA does not apply to sites on private land; and 4) to backfill areas of architecture exposed by non-professional excavation.
During the course of excavations at Yellow Jacket, landowners of all privately-owned parcels of the site were contacted for permission to map the architecture on their land. This contact invariably included discussion of why such information was valuable and what could be learned with the results. Landowners were provided with a copy of the site map after their respective parcels were mapped, and are being provided with a copy of this report.
Livestock had caused a noticeable amount of damage to the site prior to the commencement of Crow Canyon's research. In June 1995, Crow Canyon collaborated with The Archaeological Conservancy to fence a 1,000-foot-long unfenced gap at the northeast edge of the site (Figure 3) through which livestock had been gaining access. This fence effectively closed the site against future livestock damage.
Encounters with human remains were reported to Leigh Jenkins, Director of the Cultural Preservation Office of the Hopi tribe, and to Susan Collins, State Archaeologist. As requested, Crow Canyon reburied all human remains in the excavation units in which they were encountered.
All masonry walls that had been exposed prior to Crow Canyon's research at the site were mapped as part of the disturbance assessment research goal. This information, along with recommendations for backfilling, were included in the Yellow Jacket Site Management and Protection Plan (Kuckelman and Glowacki 1995). Although these depressions have not yet been filled, this documentation is available should funding be acquired.
