News From The Field

July 30, 2010

July is always one of our busiest months in the field, and this year was no exception, with participants enrolled in a wide variety of teen, adult, and family programs: the three-week High School Field School, one-week High School Archaeology Camp, three-week teachers institute (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities), weekly Archaeology Research Programs, and Family Archaeology Week. With all that help, not even July's heat, which reached into the mid-90s, could slow our progress.

High School Field School student holds a corrugated gray ware sherd he found during excavation.

Much of our work this past month focused on Monsoon House, Windy Knob, and Lupine Ridge. The results of test excavations indicate that all three sites, or at least the tested portions, date from the late Pueblo II or early Pueblo III periods, or about A.D. 1100 to 1240.

In the Block 100 midden at Monsoon House, we found both McElmo and Mesa Verde black-on-white pottery, and below this same midden, we discovered what appeared to be redeposited construction fill. The latter suggests that one or more nearby structures were removed or remodeled before the area was used as a refuse dump. In a test pit along the north wall of the Block 200 roomblock, we uncovered about 60 to 70 cm of cultural fill beneath the basal course of a McElmo-style masonry wall, which suggests extensive use of this part of the site prior to the construction of the rooms sometime during the Pueblo III period.

High school students gain valuable experience in field techniques during their three-week program.

Work at Windy Knob revealed a relatively dense midden that included Mancos, McElmo, and Mesa Verde black-on-white sherds. The dates for Mancos Black-on-white (A.D. 920–1180) include the early part of the Pueblo II period, so the presence of this pottery type may indicate some use of the site during that time. However, most of the artifacts reinforce the initial impression that the site was intensively occupied during the late Pueblo II and early Pueblo III periods. Further analysis of artifacts in the lab will help clarify the exact temporal affiliation of materials collected from the site. (See Chapter 5 in Crow Canyon's online laboratory manual for descriptions, date ranges, and color photographs of the various pottery types found in the Mesa Verde region.)

At Lupine Ridge—the largest of the "small" sites we are testing—we continued excavations in the Block 500 midden and along the north wall of one roomblock. The dominance of McElmo and Mesa Verde black-on-white pottery in the decorated assemblage suggests extensive use spanning largely the same years as Windy Knob and the northern part of Monsoon House. Smaller numbers of Mancos Black-on-white sherds likely reflect an earlier and less intensive use of this block or other blocks nearby.

Taken as a whole, the work completed in July is helping us better understand and define the community complex that preceded the large-scale construction of Goodman Point Pueblo. As we enter the home stretch of our final field season in the Goodman Point Unit, we are excited about what the final few months of excavation will yield. It's our last opportunity to gather important data that will help us understand one of the largest ancestral Pueblo communities in the Mesa Verde region.

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