Standardizing Condition Monitoring at Antelope House

Summary

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

Located in Canyon de Chelly National Monument (CACH), Antelope House is one of the most recognized precontact architectural sites on the Navajo Nation, consisting of 93 rooms, 7 kivas, and 10 structures. Many of these rooms and their associated architectural features are noticeably deteriorating, made evident by masonry failures as well as significant mortar and plaster loss. Site monitoring procedures have varied significantly over the past two decades, resulting in inconsistencies in photography and documentation. In 2018, the National Park Service (NPS) updated the condition monitoring program from the Antelope House Monitoring Plan (2002). The updated plan maintains the same goals of the Antelope House Monitoring Plan (2002), but the format, terminology, and process of describing conditions have changed. The procedure includes photographing the walls, floor and fill of each room, assessing their condition, and ranking the most at-risk elements. This project allows the NPS to evaluate Antelope House’s deterioration rates since 2002 and it standardizes long term monitoring procedures at the site. In addition, the documentation will help to inform a forthcoming first-order structural stability assessment by providing updated information on site elements that may be contributing to structural issues.

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): 26322