News From The Field

January 10, 2010

Grant Coffey, director of Phase II of the Goodman Point Archaeological Project.

 

Excavation at the Harlan Great Kiva site, summer 2009.

It's hard to believe that we have finished yet another field season, and it is even harder to imagine that we have only one year of fieldwork left to complete this second, and final, phase of our excavations at the Goodman Point Unit. On November 20, we wrapped up our 2009 field operation and came into the office to organize our data and write the annual report. The hard work of many individuals—including Crow Canyon staff, program participants (a total of 480, from middle school through adult), and volunteers—allowed us to finish before the snow started flying.

From the standpoint of better understanding the Pueblo community that developed in the Goodman Point area from about A.D. 900 to 1280, 2009 was a very productive year. Some highlights are detailed below.

Harlan Great Kiva Site

As the site name indicates, the architectural focal point of the Harlan Great Kiva site is a great kiva, a type of subterranean structure known from throughout the ancient Pueblo world from at least the seventh through thirteenth centuries A.D. Great kivas are generally believed to have served a community-wide function—that is, they were places where people gathered to observe important community rituals or make community decisions.

On the basis of masonry style and pottery evidence documented thus far, we estimate that the Harlan great kiva was built in the A.D. 1000s and used through the early A.D. 1200s. These dates, if borne out by subsequent analyses, indicate that the Harlan great kiva predates the much larger village site of Goodman Point Pueblo, which appears to have been built and occupied from about A.D. 1260 to 1280. Thus, the Harlan great kiva site may have been the focal point of an "early" Goodman Point community consisting of multiple small sites, only to be replaced by the great kiva at Goodman Point Pueblo when the population began aggregating into the large village in the middle A.D. 1200s. (Read more about Goodman Point Pueblo, excavated by Crow Canyon from 2005 to 2008.)

Excavations in Surface Rooms

In 2009, we documented one surface room in the north portion of the earthen berm surrounding the Harlan great kiva and two in the eastern berm. The latter clearly represent at least two episodes of construction, which suggests that the site area was probably used for a relatively long period.

Two surface structures discovered in the eastern berm area surrounding the great kiva at the Harlan Great Kiva site indicate two distinct construction episodes. Click on image for enlarged, labeled photo.

The earliest surface room in the eastern berm (Structure 140) appears to be "post supported"—that is, in the short segment of wall that was exposed during excavation, there is evidence of vertical-post construction, rather than of stone masonry. This type of construction was most common before A.D. 900 but continued to be occasionally used into the mid-1000s. Stratigraphic evidence, too, supports the interpretation that this room is an early construction: It was found under the earthen berm created during the construction of the great kiva and below a masonry surface structure (see next paragraph). The discovery of an early, post-supported structure is significant, as this room may be associated with early midden deposits discovered in 2008—deposits that appear to date to the late A.D. 900s or early 1000s.

Above the post-supported room and cut into the berm surrounding the great kiva is a later surface room (Structure 127) constructed of single-course masonry (walls that are one stone wide). Single-course masonry was most common during the early to middle Pueblo II period (about A.D. 900 to 1050).

Excavations in the Great Kiva

The floor vault in the Harlan great kiva as exposed at floor level in 2009. Crow Canyon will excavate the vault during the 2010 field season. Click on image for enlarged, labeled photo.

Excavators made good progress inside the great kiva proper (Structure 101) in 2009, uncovering the latest floor surface and associated features, including part of a floor vault and masonry column. Floor vaults are common features in great kivas throughout the northern Southwest, and theories about their possible uses abound—everything from ritual dance platforms to "planter boxes" for the germination of seeds, which may have been important to seasonal agricultural rituals.

The masonry column, which was uncovered in the southeast quadrant of the great kiva, is believed to be one of four massive columns that initially would have supported a roof of some type. Its construction is atypical—that is, the column appears to have been built in the shape of a 'T' when viewed from above, whereas most great kiva columns are either rectangular or square.

Also in the Harlan great kiva, the presence of only a very thin layer of burned roofing debris overlying the floor and the column seems to suggest that the roof of the structure might have been partly or almost completely dismantled during the final use of the structure. We are hoping that tree-ring samples collected from this layer, as well as samples collected from other nearby structures and middens, will yield dates that will help us pinpoint when the site was constructed and used.

Artifacts recovered from the Harlan great kiva or adjacent berm area in 2009 include a fragment of worked copper (perhaps a copper bell), a piece of unworked turquoise, and an azurite "ball." Because these raw materials are unavailable naturally in the area, it is likely that the items represent an ancient trade network that included the Harlan Great Kiva site and potentially extended all the way to northern Mexico.

For a photograph of the excavations in the Harlan great kiva late in the 2009 season, see the September 30, 2009, field update.

Other Small-Site Excavations

One of the goals of our Phase II research is to better understand the numerous small sites in the Goodman Point Unit. When were they built and occupied? How were they used? What are the relationships between various small sites and between the small sites and the large village of Goodman Point Pueblo? All these questions speak to the broader goal of reconstructing community development in the Goodman Point area over a period of 400 years.

Example of single-course masonry walls with vertical sandstone footers at Pinyon Place. Click on image for enlarged, labeled photo.

In 2009, Crow Canyon continued or initiated test excavations at 11 small sites in addition to the Harlan Great Kiva site: Rain Ridge, Thunder Knoll, Lightning Terrace, Trail Terrace, Mountain View, Lupine Ridge, Meadow View, Pinyon Place, Bluebird House, Monsoon House, and the Goodman Point Belt Loop Road. Probably two of the most important developments that resulted from these excavations were (1) the recognition of different building styles that are helping us date the various sites and (2) the discovery of additional dismantled buildings, which reinforces the pattern initially observed during test excavations in 2008. Both developments are important to our understanding of community development at Goodman Point.

This room in Block 400 at Trail Terrace was constructed of double-course (two-stones-wide) masonry. Click on image for enlarged, labeled photo.

The masonry walls of roomblocks tested at Bluebird House and Pinyon Place are one stone wide and built on vertical sandstone footers, a construction style which, as discussed above, is generally thought to date to the early to middle Pueblo II period, or about A.D. 900 to A.D. 1050. Archaeologists believe that the Mesa Verde region was almost entirely depopulated from about A.D. 880 to the early 900s, with much of the population migrating to areas to the south. Thus, Bluebird House and Pinyon Place may be part of an early Pueblo II community whose inhabitants were among the first people to reoccupy the region after the late-ninth-century migration.

Excavations at other small sites in the Goodman Point Unit revealed building styles more characteristic of the Pueblo III period (A.D. 1150–1300). For example, at several sites, roomblocks were built of double-course masonry (walls that are two stones wide), the predominant wall-construction technique after A.D. 1150. All these roomblocks had been partly dismantled at some point in the past, presumably so that construction materials could be salvaged for use elsewhere, but the degree of dismantling varied. Some structures had six to seven intact wall courses, while others retained only a single basal wall course. This suggests a difference in building-material reuse through time, perhaps with more-extensive recycling occurring in the late Pueblo III period (when a lot of stone was needed to construct Goodman Point Pueblo about A.D. 1260).

Looking Ahead to the 2010 Field Season

The 2009 annual fieldwork report will be completed and posted on Crow Canyon's Web site soon. This report, which will also be submitted to the National Park Service, provides greater detail on our excavations this past season, including information about each excavation unit. We will use the report, and our original research design, to begin planning our final year of fieldwork at the Goodman Point Unit.

In 2010, we will continue investigating many of the small sites mentioned above and initiate test excavations at three additional habitation sites. Work will also continue at the Harlan Great Kiva site, as we place additional excavation units to further explore the layout of the great kiva and nearby structures. The results should broaden our understanding of the early community that lived in the Goodman Point area before the construction of Goodman Point Pueblo.

The 2010 season is our last opportunity to gather important information needed to accomplish our research goals at the Goodman Point Unit. So come join us—and help complete the work we started in 2005!

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