Vanishing River Volume 1: Part 3, Classic Period and Multicomponent Sites in the LVAP Study Area

Robert B. Neily; Richard Ciolek-Torello; Su Benaron; Jeffrey A. Homburg; Lee Lindsay; Steven D. Shelley

Vanishing River Volume 1: Part 3, Classic Period and Multicomponent Sites in the LVAP Study Area

Part of the Lower Verde Archaeological project

Author(s): Robert B. Neily; Richard Ciolek-Torello; Su Benaron; Jeffrey A. Homburg; Lee Lindsay; Steven D. Shelley

Editor(s): Richard Ciolek-Torello

Year: 1997

Summary

Volume 1, Part 3 describes archaeological data recovery and summary results from work at several Classic period farmstead sites and a few multicomponent hamlet/village sites in the Horseshoe Basin area of the lower Verde River. The Lone Juniper site, Usedtobe Ruin, and the Little House site are farmstead sites located within 1 km of one another on Pleistocene terraces above the Verde River floodplain. Excavation at these sites uncovered small rectangular domestic rooms, masonry walls, remnants of jacal structures, associated middens, and rock alignments and piles. The No-see-um site and AZ U:2:66 are two multi-component sites in the study area.

Roadhouse Ruin is a moderate-sized middle Classic period habitation site situated on a narrow terrace that extended from the base of a steep hill toward the Verde River floodplain to the east. Masonry architectural components, consisting of 12–13 habitation structures, one storage structure, a plaza, and at least 12 walled enclosures, were distributed among nine contiguous courtyard units in a northwest-southeast orientation along both sides of Horseshoe Dam Road. Other features found included five inhumations, two pit houses, one trash area at the south end of the site and one to the northeast, and two roasting pits to the west and northwest. Roadhouse Ruin represents one of many Classic period settlements recorded in the vicinity. Other Classic period sites in the area include a possible fortified hilltop site, numerous small compound sites, and a late Classic period nucleated village. One compound site (AZ U:2:29 [ASU]) in this area had been previously excavated (Shaffer 1972), and two other sites, the Little House site and the Lone Juniper site, were excavated during the Lower Verde Archaeological project.

The No-see-um site is a small, probably pre-Classic period, habitation site that was later used as a resource procurement and processing site during the Classic period. During its later occupation, it was probably related to the nearby Lone Juniper site. Site AZ U:2:66, another Classic period resource procurement and processing site, is probably a part of the Crash Landing Complex, a large Classic period dry farming and resource procurement complex located south of Lime Creek.

Cite this Record

Vanishing River Volume 1: Part 3, Classic Period and Multicomponent Sites in the LVAP Study Area. Robert B. Neily, Richard Ciolek-Torello, Su Benaron, Jeffrey A. Homburg, Lee Lindsay, Steven D. Shelley, Richard Ciolek-Torello. In Vanishing River: Landscapes and Lives of the Lower Verde Valley: The Lower Verde Archaeological Project: Volume 1: Descriptions of Habitation and Nonagricultural Sites. Pp. 133-200. Tucson, AZ: Statistical Research, Inc. Press. 1997 ( tDAR id: 372139) ; doi:10.6067/XCV8JS9NFC