Painted Cave Northern Arizona

Summary

The body of literature dealing with the archaeology of the San Juan drainage, while large, is strangely silent concerning the extreme northeastern corner of Arizona in the region of the Carrizo and Lukachukai Mountains. Prudden, in his classic study of the ruins in the San Juan watershed, mentions both surface and cave sites but they were small for the most part, and none received more than a cursory examination. Many years later, in 1924, a Peabody Museum expedition headed by Oliver LaFarge, explored the area in question as a part of its itinerary but little or no actual digging was done and no published material is available. In 1925, Noel Morss worked 10 days in the Tsegihochong north of the Hospitibito drainage and southwest of the Carrizo Mountains 3 near the seat of operations covered by this report.

Beyond doubt, the area is best known to Earl H. Morris who excavated in both the Hospitibito and the Red Rock districts in 1930 and 1931 when with the Bernheimer Expedition. Most of these studies were done, however, on the Red Rock side of the divide between the Lukachukai and Carrizo Mountains, and Morris’ report on Obelisk, Broken Flute and other caves, yielding excellent Basketmaker material, is eagerly awaited.

In the spring of 1927, William S. Fulton, now Director of the Amerind Foundation, Dragoon, Arizona, and Wilbur P. Bryan, spent some weeks in the Hospitibito drainage. In the summer of that year, the Arizona State Museum, Tucson, sent a small party into the area with the hope of gaining information on the Basketmaker Culture. Most of the time was taken up with the clearing of Vandal Cave in an eastern tributary of the Hospitibito. A day was also spent in a cave with innumerable wall paintings, situated in the second canyon to the north, but finding the refuse thin, and due to rather extensive excavations prior to our arrival, further operations were dropped.

On learning from Mr. Fulton a few years ago that it was his party which had anticipated the Arizona State Museum party by about two months and that some exceptionally fine material had been recovered, interest in the area was revived to the extent that the cave was revisited briefly in October 1939, with the intention of clearing up a few details not previously obtained. The outgrowth of this was an invitation from The Amerind Foundation to prepare for publication the work of both parties concerned. This report is the result.

Northeastern Arizona lies at a three-way cross-roads of the Kayenta, Mesa Verde and Chaco variants of what is commonly referred to as the San Juan culture area of the Anasazi. This fact in itself poses many knotty problems which can only be unravelled by a study of far more data than are at my disposal. No apology is made, therefore, for the perfunctory treatment of the material and this report should be regarded as a fact-gathering step towards clearing up the haze in which this peripheral area is presently engulfed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Amerind Museum

Contributor(s): Brigham Arnold; Florence Shipek; Lila Sands; A.J. Thompson; Edgar Anderson; T.H. Kearney; R.H. Peebles; T.W. Whitaker; F.M. Brown; E.B. Sayles; Charles Newcomb; Byron Cummings; E.J. Hands; E.R. Fryer; Harold S. Colton

Prepared By(s): University of Arizona

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