On Site...
at Chaves-Hummingbird

July 20-21: A new perspective on the site...

A kiva ladder in Acoma Pueblo.

July 20.
Excavations show only a small portion of a single place on the landscape, so today was "horizon expansion" day. The entire project packed up and visited Acoma Pueblo (Sky City), a Keresan-speaking Pueblo community located near Grants, New Mexico. This village has been central to Southwestern history and prehistory. All of the inhabitants are very aware of the deep history of the place since archaeologists have placed the earliest occupation of this lofty mesa top at about 1000 years ago. This makes it one of the oldest, if not THE oldest, continually occupied settlement in the United States. Everyone took their experiences of the past week to visualize how Acoma would appear has it been left of the ravages of the Southwestern sun and wind hundreds of years ago, but also appreciating the life and vibrancy of this thriving village.

An oven in Acoma Pueblo.

We ended the day with debate and mud. While debating the topic of who "owns" the archaeological record as part of our after dinner program, the New Mexico skies opened up, dropping over an inch of much-needed moisture. Of course, that much rain translated into a very muddy exit from the Chaves Ranch. We left our trusty (and wimpy) van for three four-wheel drive vehicles and jounced the four muddy miles to the interstate. Digging in the outback means you take your chances and live by the rules of the desert, the primary rule still being that you respect the powers of this place.

Updated Aerial Photo!
As a gift to the project, the Chaves family rented a small airplane and pilot to take aerial photos of the site. The new photo shows the areas under excavation. Our thanks to the Chaves family for this very generous gift, now you can all envision where we are working on the site.

July 21.
The adventures of the muddy exit required a late start to today's excavations. Despite the late resumption, everyone sped along to very productive research goals. Nearly every group is within a day of completing their initial excavation assignment, and the results are exciting. In the northern roomblock we've now got three rooms nearing or reaching their lowermost floors. In two rooms we have at least three different construction episodes, so the people living and modifying these rooms were certainly busy. Dean Rudoy and Frank Cerruti have uncovered their third living surface, and after our break on July 22 will look for a fourth, earlier living floor. The same goes for Room 38 being investigated by John Hufnagle and Severin Fowles.

Here there are at least two formalized floor levels, with a very likely third level. In the area now identified as a room that Amy Raes is excavating we have defined three of the four walls, and we believe we are close to the uppermost floor level.

The eastern front is certainly not all quiet. In the Eastern roomblock, Room 5 has now reached sterile soil, the original land surface on which the room was built, in two of the four quadrants of the room. Here, as with the northern roomblock, there are multiple flooring and construction episodes. Adam, Christine and Jeannie are moving to the northeast quadrant of the room, where they have already uncovered the remains of a stone-lined storage bin in their room.

Cooking dinner at Chaves-Hummingbird... an evening activity for more than 500 years.

Room 43's crew is finding possible evidence of two-story architecture in their room, including pieces of upper story walls and floors in this increasingly deep room. These are new revelations, since we've not seen evidence of multiple story architecture in the predominantly adobe architecture in the eastern and northern roomblocks.

Deeper excavations mean greater chances of investigating the early occupation levels of the site. The excavations by Jay, Jim and Mike in the bulldozer trench have uncovered the wall of a room over five feet below the ground surface. The associated pottery may well date this room to the 13th century, part of the founding village that gave rise to the large settlement we know as the Chaves-Hummingbird Pueblo.

Mary and Jane uncovering pottery fragment.

Finally, Jane, Tim and Mary have uncovered the floor of their room, exposing a large pottery fragment from a polychrome bowl. The bowl was associated with burned roof fragments, indicating a possible multi-story building that comprised what we know as Room 901.

Room 901 pottery fragment in place.

The Rio Puerco basin occupies roughly 16,000 square kilometers of northwestern New Mexico. Rio Puerco is one of the main tributaries of the Rio Grande, entering the river near Bernardo. Learn more about this watershed here.

Create your own map, showing the Rio Puerco in relation to major roads and rivers, and to state, federal and Native American lands. Click here for Enviromapper.

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