Class III Cultural Resource Survey for the West Verde RX Project within the Tonto National Forest

Chronicle Heritage performed a Class III cultural resource survey of 3,200 acres within the Tonto National Forest north of Phoenix.

Project Overview:

Tonto National Forest contracted Chronicle Heritage to conduct a Class III cultural resource inventory of 3,200 acres of U.S. Forest Service-administered land in Maricopa and Yavapai counties in Arizona. The inventory was completed in advance of a proposed fuels thinning project. The survey of the area of potential effects (APE) included attempts to revisit, update, or fully rerecord 60 previously recorded sites, 40 of which were rerecorded, and identification of 47 new sites. In addition to the newly identified and fully or partially rerecorded sites, 13 sites were revisited and assessed. Chronicle Heritage received a follow-up contract/project extension from Tonto National Forest based on the results of the project.

Program activities included:

A survey of the entire APE by archaeologists walking parallel transects spaced no more than 15 meters apart.
No artifacts were collected during fieldwork, but for sites with fewer than 100 artifacts, all artifacts were recorded. For sites with more than 100 artifacts, diagnostic artifacts were recorded for the entire site.
Artifacts recorded included prehistoric ceramics, flaked stones, ground stones, shells, faunal bones, historic ceramics, cans and glass.

Achievements:

A grand total of 100 sites were recorded, rerecorded, updated or revisited during the course of the survey. The sites consist of 80 prehistoric sites, 14 historic sites, and six multicomponent sites.
Of the 87 sites recorded, rerecorded or updated during the survey, 75 are recommended eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).

Additional Information

Client

Tonto National Forest

Location

Cave Creek, Arizona

Sector

Federal Government

Results at a Glance

The survey led to an over 50 percent increase in the number of known sites and a 30 percent increase in the number of known rooms in the national forest, recording significant new data for evaluating competing academic models for the area.
Chronicle Heritage raised the possibility of the association of the sites recorded by this project with an existing NRHP district. Given the continuous spatial patterning and cultural continuity between sites within the existing Perry Mesa District National Register listing and sites in the current APE, a strong case could be made for adding the five sites identified as prehistoric roomblock villages in the report to the existing district.
Chronicle Heritage advised that all sites recommended as eligible for inclusion in the NRHP be avoided by mechanical activities
Chronicle Heritage received a follow-up contract/project extension from Tonto National Forest based on the results of the project.

“The project provided the national forest with management data for fire prevention activities, road maintenance, and looting prevention, as well as an improved understanding of the site density in the region. More broadly, it provided a systematic dataset from a little-known area with significant implications on the archaeological understanding of the region’s social-political organization.”
– Dr. Angela Huster, Principal Investigator

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