Back in Colorado for another archaeological dig - this time at Mitchell Springs Ruins in Cortez, Colorado. Owner of the land and the head archaeologist, Dave Dove, welcomed about 35 of us for the May field school. Most if not all of us are members of the Colorado or Arizona Archaeological Societies. I am a member of the Colorado Archaeological Society, both the San Juan Basin (Durango) and the Hisatsinom (Cortez) chapters. (At home in Sacramento, I'm also a member of the Sacramento Archaeological Society).
To give you a perspective on the property, I am going to paraphrase directly from the Archaeological Survey of the property compiled by Dave M. Dove dated March 2012. It's an incredible site!
"In the fall of 2010, several members of the Hisatsinom Chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society began an intensive archaeological survey of a 36 acre parcel of property located just south of the town of Cortez, Colorado. The Puebloan features which lie on this property were part of the greater ancient Mitchell Springs community which is spread across roughly 2 square kilometers and centered on the Mitchell Springs main site group, located approximately seven hundred meters to the southwest. Prior to historic disturbance, this community included over 60 small pueblos dating from the Basketmaker III (ca. A.D. 500-750) through middle Pueblo III (around A.D. 1230) periods. The size and chronological depth of this community center make it one of the largest and longest occupied in the central Montezuma Valley. McElmo Creek flows through the valley which was heavily populated during most of the Puebloan era.
The main site group at Mitchell Springs included at least three multi-story Chaco-like great houses, two or three large 10+meter diameter kivas (Dove et al. 2009:120), several small towers, a tri wall structure, a reservoir and a multi-story tower kiva (Dove et al. 1997). Lewis Henry Morgan, a New York attorney and avocational archaeologist producted a simple map of the Mitchell Springs site and noted the great tower and the largest mound in the group during an 1878 trip through the Montezuma Valley (Morgan 1965 [1881]:215).
Given the close proximity of the prehistoric Mitchell Springs Community to the historic early settlement near the springs and the nearby town of Cortez, many if not most of the prehistoric features and structures have suffered significant deleterious impact from the historic road construction and relic hunters. Fortunately, significant undisturbed portions of the site deposits remain intact.
Approximately 550 contiguous acres of the community have been surveyed and more work is planned."
Check out Dave Dove's website for details on the survey. The website is updated periodically to include more recent excavation information.
http://www.fourcornersresearch.com/Mitchell-Springs.html
The four corners region of Colorado is very rich in ancient puebloan ruins most being on private property. We felt quite fortunate to be a part of this field school. Association with an archaeological society is truly one of the best ways to find out about these opportunities. Here are some pictures of the site I worked on along with my fellow companions:
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| Starting the dig |
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| Dave Dove (white hat) with the site foreman, Larry |
We had a good spot really with plenty of room. Not an extraordinary amount of artifacts were found other than the normal amount of bones, pottery shards and small tools. I'm very grateful we didn't start with the site below! A lot of moving of stones to get to the artifacts but the artifacts found at this site were amazing. Each site and I think there were about ten had a site foreman and maybe three to four volunteers.
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| Sifting to find artifacts - in the hot sun! But I love it! |
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| Hard work but a labor of love for all of us! |
Some scenes of our campsite area, nightly get-togethers, and surrounding scenery...really amazing country.
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| Fields against Sleeping Ute Mtn. |
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| Incredible mountain ranges |
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| Nightly happy hour at the campsites |
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| Nice people...every one of them |
After a really tough but gratifying five days, Dave Dove, land owner and head archaeologist had a BBQ at his home which we all attended. The food was so good and the company really, really good. We
had a great time talking and enjoying our meal with everyone before we said our goodbyes the next morning.
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| Dave's great BBQ! |
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| A few of our fellow diggers |
After the field school, off we went to some other fascinating places. The Southwest is full of them!
