Continued Work on the Ray Robinson Collection: The Perishable Assemblages from Bonita Creek Cave Cache and Hackberry Ranch Sites in Southeastern Arizona

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Investigations continue into the Ray Robinson Collection by Archaeology Southwest’s team of volunteer researchers in partnership with the Arizona State Museum. This paper will focus on the extensive perishable assemblage from the renowned Bonita Creek Cave Cache (W:14:1 ASM) north of Safford, Arizona and two sites near Hackberry Ranch southeast of Safford. These sites were collected by Ray during the late 1950s and early 1960s with the permission of the then private landowners while he was conducting geological survey work. The Bonita Creek Cave Cache was published by William Wasley in 1962, four years after Ray’s first visit with landowner Ray Claridge and Emil Haury. The Hackberry Ranch sites (Cave and Dry Lakes) do not appear to have been previously recorded, although there are recorded cave sites in the vicinity. Our investigations augmented by Ray’s notes shed light on the poorly documented archaeological record near the Pelloncillo Mountains. All of these sites produced a wide variety of perishable objects rarely recovered from archaeological contexts in the region, including sandals, cordage and wooden objects. This paper will share the results of documentary research conducted on the Robinson Collection notes and present a detailed inventory of the perishable assemblages from each site.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50278