News From The Field

September 30, 2009

September was our last full month with program participants in the field. With the help of adults and middle school students, we were able to finish a lot of work at the Goodman Point Unit, excavating at a total of five different sites. The fieldwork completed in September puts us on-track not only to close down the excavations this year but also to complete Phase II excavations in 2010.

Room built in the northern berm area surrounding the great kiva at the Harlan Great Kiva site.

Middle school students from Blue Oak School in California assisted in our ongoing work at Trail Terrace, primarily in the midden area. The types of pottery recovered are consistent with a large-scale Pueblo III occupation of the site and a less well defined Pueblo II use of the area, an interpretation also supported by architectural evidence reported in last month’s update.

Adults assisted with ongoing excavations at three sites (Pinyon Place, Thunder Knoll, and the Harlan Great Kiva site) and began work at a fourth (Meadow View) in September. The excavations at Pinyon Place and Thunder Knoll focused on test pits placed in kivas to help us better define the horizontal extent and architectural layout of the structures. At month’s end, we are still relatively high in the sediments that fill the kiva depressions, so we’ll have to wait until next year to estimate the structures' ages and identify their construction styles.

Trenches excavated inside the great kiva at the Harlan Great Kiva site reveal complex architecture, including a dry-laid wall built on top of roof fall, a masonry column support, and a section of the upper lining wall of the great kiva. (See enlarged, color-coded photograph with labels.)

At the Harlan Great Kiva site, program participants worked in excavation units located inside the great kiva, in the northern and southern berms surrounding the great kiva, and in two rooms in the northern and eastern berms. Their efforts produced numerous tree-ring samples that we hope will help us date the site. In addition, excavators further exposed internal architectural elements of the great kiva, including a large masonry column or roof support.

The site where we started new excavations, Meadow View, is located near the large village of Goodman Point Pueblo. The characteristics of the collapsed masonry and associated artifacts observed on the modern ground surface suggested that most of the site was likely built and used at the same time that the nearby village was occupied (mid-to-late A.D. 1200s). This initial impression was subsequently strengthened once adult program participants began working in test pits located in various parts of the site, including the midden, a kiva, a room, and along the exterior face of the north wall of the roomblock. The relationship between this small, relatively isolated site and the much larger village will be an important focus of future research.

Though the participant field season largely came to a close in September, the staff will continue working in the field until November—or the first heavy snow. It is during this time that we complete excavations begun by program participants and finish the field documentation. More than any other time of year, this is a period when we recognize and appreciate the enormous contribution each participant has made toward furthering our research. We would like to thank everyone who helped throughout the year, and we look forward to seeing you next season as we start the final year of excavation at the Goodman Point Unit!

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