Archaeological Survey and Small-Scale Excavation in the Salado Draw Watershed, Lea County, New Mexico (redacted)

Summary

This report is a component of an undertaking entitled Salado Draw Archaeological Survey, Small-Scale Excavation, and Geomorphological Characterization, General Services Administration Contract No. GS- 10F-0396P. The work was commissioned by the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Manage- ment– (BLM–) Carlsbad Field Office (CFO) as part of research to be carried out under the Permian Basin Programmatic Agreement, Blanket Purchase Agreement No. 11, Contract No. L14PA00010. It addresses the Task 11 survey and test-excavation report. Other components of the larger Salado Draw investigation are published separately: the Task 12 mortar-hole-study report (Cason et al. 2023), the Task 13 Salado Draw geomorphological-study report (Onken 2023), the Task 14 report describing the paleoethnobotany study (Cason 2022a), the Task 15 starch-extraction and identification pilot study (Perry 2022), the Task 16 lithic- use-wear analysis (Cason 2022b), and the Task 17 public-education report (Cason 2023). The project area is a 6,702-acre (2,712.2-ha) contiguous survey block centered on Salado Draw, a small drainage basin within the Pecos River watershed, in southeastern New Mexico, in Lea County, ca. 20 miles (32.3 km) east of the Pecos River and 2 miles (3.2 km) north of the Texas state line. It lies within the Mescalero Plain physiographic unit and is encompassed by the BLM-CFO management district in the Per- mian Basin. The majority of the project area is on BLM land, but small portions are private or are owned by the New Mexico State Land Office. Transect Recording Unit (TRU) survey of the project area produced data that was used to record 100 archaeological sites, mostly composed of indigenous artifacts and features and a smaller number of historical- period resources. Small-scale excavations were carried out in 77 Indigenous features, many of which produced data for specialized studies, including accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates and microbotanical and macrobotanical identification. A geomorphological study produced a characterization of the depositional units and paleoenvironment in the study area, augmented by optically stimulated luminosity (OSL) dates, bulk-sediment AMS dating, and other geomorphological analyses. Indigenous archaeological materials in the study area include abundant flaked and ground stone artifacts and a modest number of Indigenous ceramics. The features (n = 1,207) include numerous thermal appliances, small residential structures (and some structures of unknown function), midden deposits, activity areas, and lithic concentrations. There are also a small number of petroglyphs and one special-use cairn. Bedrock mortars are the most-abundant features in the project area (n = 793) and are present in a variety of natural and archaeological contexts as well as, in some instances, in clusters consisting of several-hundred features. Many of the sites appear to be logistical in nature, but there are also examples of single- and multiple household residential occupations. Salado Draw is noteworthy for several reasons, one being that a relatively high number (n = 29) of Paleoindian period projectile points have been recovered from six sites and two isolated manifestations— the highest density of known Paleoindian period artifacts in the BLM-CFO region. Clovis, Folsom, and Late Paleoindian period projectile points indicate a presence in the area spanning ca. 11,500–6000 B.C. A small number of Early and Middle Archaic period diagnostic projectile points attest to minimal occupation during those periods, ca. 6000–1800 B.C. However, AMS dates and diagnostic artifacts indicate growing and persistent Indigenous occupations in Salado Draw from the Late Archaic period into the Early Formative period, ca. 1800 B.C.–A.D. 1100. Additional AMS dates and artifacts indicate a dwindling but notable presence in the Late Formative and post-Formative periods, from A.D. 1100 into the nineteenth century.

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Notes

General Note: redacted for public

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