Interstate 10 Frontage Road Project, Results of Phase 1 Data Recovery at AZ AA:12:746 (ASM), Tucson, Pima County, Arizona

Summary

As part of the archaeological mitigation program of the Arizona Department of Transportation's Interstate 10 Frontage Roads Project, the well-preserved remains of an early agricultural village were found buried in the floodplain of the Santa Cruz River during preliminary archaeological investigations at site AZ AA:12:746 (ASM) in 1993. A total of 32 prehistoric cultural features were identified, including 13 pithouses, 1 possible pithouse, 10 roasting pits, 1 trash pit, and 6 concentrations of artifacts clustered within an area of about 3,000 m2, and 1 isolated trash pit. One pithouse had a fired-plaster floor, and most of the pithouses had internal storage pits. The age ranges of a projectile point type and other temporally-diagnostic artifacts recovered from primary contexts, along with 2 associated radiocarbon dates and 1 archaeomagnetic assay, indicate that the site was occupied between at least 400 and 225 B.C., during the Late Archaic period. After the site was abandoned sometime after 225 B.C., the pithouse depressions were used for trash disposal until about A.D. 1000, and then a few roasting pits and trash pits were cut into the alluvium and into some earlier features between about A.D. 1150 and 1300. Plowing and irrigation of the site during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as a mid-to late twentieth century pecan orchard, did not significantly disturb the deeply buried prehistoric features. In addition to the habitation structures and storage pits, the recovered assemblages of artifacts, animal bones, and plant remains indicate either seasonal or year-round sedentary occupation of this village by people who farmed maize and possibly other crops on the floodplain, and collected wild plant foods and river mollusks, and hunted rabbits, deer, and other game. Plants were processed for both food and fiber with grinding stones and roasting pits, and chipped stone tools and shell jewelry were probably manufactured on the site. Nonlocal varieties of raw material for stone tools and shells from both the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean indicate that the villagers participated in long-distance trade networks. The site represents a significant cultural resource that, with further data recovery, can fill in many details about early agriculture and village life in the Southwest.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Desert Archaeology DAHA Resources   •
• Digital Archive of Huhugam Archaeology (DAHA)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Desert Archaeology, Inc.

Contributor(s): Lisa G. Eppley; James M. Heidke; Lisa W. Huckell; J. Homer Thiel; Arthur W. Vokes

Prepared By(s): Desert Archaeology, Inc.

Submitted To(s): ADOT Environmental Planning Services

Record Identifiers

ADOT Project No. (s): IR-10-4(24)

TRACS No.(s): 010 PM255H238601D

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