Keywords

Alkali Ridge Site 13, Pueblo, archaeology

Abstract

Alkali Ridge Site 13 is one of the largest, and most extensively excavated Pueblo I villages in the Northern Southwest. It also is one of the earliest Pueblo I villages, dating to the late A.D. 700s. The site was first excavated in 1932 and 1933 by J.O. Brew of Harvard University, who dug all or part of 118 storage rooms, 11 pit houses, and 25 surface habitation rooms belonging to the early Pueblo I component. In 2012, the first excavations at the site since Brew’s work focused on reexcavation of several storage rooms previously excavated in 1932, screening of backdirt from the 1932 excavations, and limited excavation into previously undisturbed rooms. These excavations were on a much smaller scale than Brew’s, but they provide information about the field techniques and artifact collection strategies used in the 1930s that was not available in either the published report or the field notes; the new excavations also provide the opportunity to compare the results of modern excavation techniques and those used in the 1930s, and to consider the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

Original Publication Citation

James R. Allison 2013 The Archaeology of Archaeology: 2012 Excavations at Alkali Ridge Site 13. Paper presented at the 78th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Honolulu, Hawaii.