News From The Field

August 31, 2010

In August, we worked with middle school students from Bucks County Pennsylvania, Archaeology Research Program participants from various parts of the country, and teachers enrolled in two workshops funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In all, we made progress at four sites within the Goodman Point Unit last month—getting as much information as possible as the fieldwork for the Goodman Point Project draws to a close.

Excavating in the midden at Sage Summit.

At Monsoon House, we continued excavations in the midden and along the north wall of the roomblock in Block 200, located in the central part of the site. The relatively dense midden deposits yielded artifacts that suggest this portion of the site was occupied primarily during the early-to-middle Pueblo III period, or from about A.D. 1150 to 1250. Some earlier pottery was also recovered from this midden, which indicates that the site was used in a more limited fashion during the Pueblo II period. One test unit along the north wall of the roomblock in Block 400, in the southern part of the site, exposed a double-course masonry wall, suggesting this roomblock was likely built and occupied sometime after A.D. 1150. 

We also continued work at a site we had just barely started last month—Sage Summit. This site has one roomblock, an associated kiva depression, and two possible midden areas. So far we have completed almost all of the midden testing, and initial impressions suggest a limited habitation of the site sometime in the early-to-middle Pueblo III period. The discovery of a double-course masonry wall in test units along the north wall of the roomblock reinforces this interpretation.

Educators in the NEH workshop tour Goodman Point Pueblo with senior research archaeologist Kristin Kuckelman.

We began test excavations at a new site that appears to be very similar to Sage Summit based on remains visible on the ground surface. Named Cactus Draw, this pueblo appears to have one roomblock, a kiva depression, and a poorly defined midden area. A possible checkdam is also present in a small drainage within the site boundary. Work in the test unit being excavated to investigate this feature is not yet complete, but we've exposed enough rock to identify a wall that was built across the drainage as a water-control feature. Architectural and artifact evidence in test units completed in the midden and along the north wall of the roomblock suggest, once again, an early-to-middle Pueblo III occupation. The shallowness of the midden deposits indicates that the site was occupied relatively briefly, and double-course masonry in the roomblock wall places that occupation after A.D. 1150.

Finally, work continued at Lupine Ridge in August. Most of our testing was focused on the central part of the site, in Blocks 200 and 700, where we excavated test units in the middens and along the north walls of roomblocks. In general, the midden deposits are shallow, and decorated pottery dating from the Pueblo III period is prevalent in the diagnostic assemblage. One double-course roomblock wall exposed in a north wall unit appears to have been built on earlier cultural deposits. This stratigraphic evidence suggests that the later Pueblo III roomblock was built on earlier cultural deposits from a previous occupation.

As the end of the field season approaches, we plan to excavate at one new site and finish the testing we have started at other sites. It will be a busy fall as we wrap up the field phase of the Goodman Point Archaeological Project. Once the participant program season ends on October 9, the field crew will still have plenty of work, including documenting the last of the excavation units, backfilling, and removing gear from the field. I’m planning on my last field update for the project late this year, when I should be able to report on some preliminary conclusions from three years of fieldwork!

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