On Site...
at Chaves-Hummingbird

July 28: Chaves Site Excavation Wrap-Up, Summer 2001

July 28th marked the last day of the Earthwatch Expedition, and as the last of the participants left the site I realized how amazingly productive the past two weeks had been. Taking a dozen eager people into the field for the first time requires a delicate balance between trying to achieve research goals while also making sure I correctly gauge everyone's energy and patience levels. This time we all walked that tightrope as a team, and in so doing accomplished even more than I had anticipated.

First, we were able to plumb the depths of the site, reaching sterile soil (contexts without evidence of occupation) in the bulldozer trench at an amazing 3.2 (10.5 feet) meters from the surface of the trench. Keeping in mind that the surface of the trench is 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) below the surface of the main mound, we now have the dirt documentation of over 18 feet of continuous layers of human occupation at the site. This sort of accretion is relatively rare in the American Southwest; people often moved more often than they stayed given the vagaries of the climate, water availability, and other factors. There don't seem to be any significant stratigraphic breaks in this record or human occupation. To add to the excitement, the lowest level of occupation also had the remains of a single pit, dug into sterile soil, containing corn cobs and seed fragments. These remains will be carbon-dated, hopefully yielding the dates for the earliest occupation at the site. The ceramics in this same pit date to the middle of the 13th century, but we will wait for see if the radiocarbon evidence corroborates our best guess for the founding of the settlement.

In the architectural areas of the site we also had a few surprises. The participants working in rooms 38 and 39 uncovered a set of rooms fronting on the plaza in the northern roomblock. At first these rooms (now numbered 74 and 75) perplexed me because there was absolutely no surface evidence of their presence. If you look at the site map, there are two rows of rooms in this part of the site, not three. After careful work by Sev Fowles and his crew, we found that these previously unknown rooms had been razed and buried some time during the occupation of the site. In fact, the walls of these two rooms had been cut down to about 1 foot in height and then filled with soil and cultural detritus, providing a "platform" that fronted on the major plaza space in this part of the site. This is a previously unrecorded practice in this part of the Pueblo world, so we are anxious to look more closely at this prevalence of this "landscaping" strategy in other parts of the site.

Finally, we were able to complete the other architectural areas of the site, exposing hearths, storage bins, and other parts of the built environment at the site. As mentioned in a previous update, it will be months before we can confidently associate artifact concentrations and other meaningful data with these contexts, but we are eager to begin doing just that. Discovery in the form of excavation moves at a blinding pace compared with the growth of knowledge derived from lab analysis of the findings.

Acknowledgements

Projects of this scope and effort are the condensation of many peoples' works and efforts, and I'd like to thank those people and groups who played a part in this summers' efforts. First, thanks to Earthwatch for their support of the research. They believed in the project and organized the participants and funding to support the excavations. To all of the Earthwatch participants, my thanks and praise. You worked, and worked, and worked. You have my admiration and thanks.

We wouldn't have had a field project had it been not for the Chaves family, the most dynamic group of people to ever share a gene pool in this part of the Southwest. Every part of the family has played a role in the work, and each person is a gracious and giving benefit to those of us who are fascinated with the past. Richard, Ricardo, Michaelyn, Ben, Barbara...thank you.

The unsung heroes of the project are my field crew, those folks who worked for food and experience, never once letting up or leaving discouraged. Sev Fowles, Michael Bletzer, Tim Jaster, Adam Shea, Jay Theuer, and Sarah Johnson all gave it their all. We know more now because you stayed with this every step of the way.

Outside of the excavation pits I have a number of people to thank. First, Southern Methodist University, and in particular the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man (ISEM) have been supportive and innovative. The web page you are looking at is supported by ISEM and webmastered by Ralph Gauer. You've put a great package together for others to enjoy. My thanks also to Lawrence Ringley and Ringley Associates, Surveyors par excellence, for lending their Topcon surveying equipment to the project. The new map of the eastern roomblock exists because of their generosity and trust with their equipment. Finally, I would not have been in the field had it not been for the foundations of my life, my wife and children. Jeanne Athos-Adler, Christopher Adler, and Alexandra Adler encourage my every day, and allowed me to take leave of hearth and home to go excavate in ancient hearths and homes. Thank you.

We will be back next year. Already we have some tantalizing clues to even more diversity in the site's architecture. For example, the eastern roomblock contains one room in particular with adobe walls that are 41 cm thick, nearly twice the thickness of the rest of the room walls at the site. This may indicate accentuated effort and importance associated with this enigmatic room. We will investigate this and other contexts at the Chaves site, and hope you will be able to join us in our endeavors. If you have questions, comments, or any interest in participating, please email me.

Michael Adler
madler@mail.smu.edu

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