News From The Field

April 28, 2008

	2008 field crew (left to right): Jonathan Walker, Steve Copeland, Susan Ryan, and Grant Coffey.
	Consultant Neal Morris and research archaeologist Susan Ryan use the total station to digitally map sites.
	Preliminary schematic showing what the isolated great kiva might have looked like. Click on image for larger, labeled view.

Phase II of Crow Canyon's research in the Goodman Point Unit is under way!

On March 31, Crow Canyon's field staff—Steve Copeland, Susan Ryan, Jonathan Walker, and I—began making preparations for the upcoming field season. We were assisted by consultant Neal Morris, who contributed his considerable mapping expertise to our field effort (and who in the past has drafted most of the site maps appearing in Crow Canyon's research publications).

To date, we have used a total station (basically, a digital transit) to map five of the 15 sites slated for testing during Phase II, and we have set in many of the excavation units that participants in Crow Canyon programs will dig in 2008. One of the sites is a relatively large pueblo with at least 10 roomblocks and 14 kivas; the 20 excavation units that have been selected for excavation should provide valuable information about site history and the relationship between this pueblo and the even-larger Goodman Point Pueblo, which Crow Canyon test-excavated from 2005 through 2007 (Phase I).

One of our main goals for 2008 is to investigate the isolated great kiva in the Goodman Point Unit. In April, we mapped the large depression that marks its location, as well as the associated rubble scatter and midden (refuse) deposit. We also selected six excavation units that we hope will shed light on when this large structure was built, how it was used, and how long it was used. This crucial information will contribute to a better understanding of community organization and settlement patterning in the Goodman Point Unit as a whole. (The accompanying three-dimensional reconstruction, based on evidence visible on the modern ground surface and data for other great kivas in the Mesa Verde region, shows what the Goodman Point great kiva might have looked like—but we'll have to wait to see what our excavations reveal to know for certain.)

Three other sites near the isolated great kiva have also been mapped and their associated kiva depressions probed for evidence that their roofs burned. We target burned kivas for test excavation because burned wood tends to preserve better than unburned wood—thus providing the all-important tree-ring samples needed to determine construction dates. The largest of these three sites appears to have interesting architecture, including kivas constructed within enclosing walls and one possible oversize kiva. Testing at this site is expected to provide important data about site development and architectural variability through time.

2008 promises to be an exciting and productive year—one that will give us our first in-depth look at a wide range of sites in the Goodman Point Unit. So come help the field crew as we explore sites "off the beaten path" to gain a better understanding of human adaptation and cultural evolution at one of the most pristine archaeological landscapes in southwestern Colorado!

Grant Coffey, Supervisory Archaeologist, Director of Goodman Point Archaeological Project Phase II