Distribution of Artifacts at the Historical Campsite of Paraje San Diego

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The site of Paraje San Diego in south-central New Mexico was used for over three centuries as stopping point on El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail. While multiple historical sources identify this site as a "paraje" or campsite, we know surprisingly little about what travelers did at the site and where these activities took place. In 1994, the New Mexico State University (NMSU) archaeological field school conducted metal detector survey, surface collection, and test excavation at Paraje San Diego. Students and other researchers analyzed the artifacts collected in this project, but lacked the resources and time to consider the distribution of artifacts across the site. In 2018, I began digitizing maps and artifact inventories produced by the 1994 project in order to explore these data with the more powerful analytical tools available in ArcGIS. In this paper, I examine the spatial distribution of artifacts at Paraje San Diego in an effort to identify and locate specific activities that took place at this historical campsite.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24938