The Far View Archaeological Project: An Introduction

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the history of Mesa Verde National Park (MVNP), the Far View community has been the focus of multiple, yet discrete, archaeological projects, from Fewkes’ excavations in the 1920s to more recent architectural documentation and stabilization in 2012. However, there are gaps in survey coverage, site forms require updating, and the community lacks an overall synthesis and interpretation of its social history. We report on our first season of a five-year collaboration with MVNP entitled the Far View Archaeological Project (FVAP). The primary goal is to re-assess settlement on Chapin Mesa through a full coverage survey of the Far View community, a densely populated pueblo village centered on Far View Great House. We use modern high-resolution techniques, including GPS mapping and drone-based photogrammetry, to record Pueblo habitations. We present the results from our first season when we recorded eighteen sites, including fifteen habitation sites and covered 38 acres. While many of these sites had been previously recorded, or were excavated by J.W. Fewkes in 1922 (Far View Tower), and by R. Lister and the UC-Boulder Field School (1954-56; 5MV866, 5MV875), we also identified three previously unrecorded sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32996