History of Research_________________ Malpai Borderlands Prehistory

Systematic archaeology in the Malpai Borderlands begins with D. D. Gaillard’s (1896) map of the elevated Cloverdale Playa beachline in the San Luis Valley. During his involvement with the U.S.-Mexico International Border Survey, Gailard was drawn to this feature by local ranchers’ reports of a massive Native American dam. Familiar with the scale of prehistoric irrigation in the Phoenix Basin, he accepted the raised beachline as evidence of a massive water control construction and reported his findings in the American Anthropologist. The dam was almost immediately recognized as a prominent but natural topographic feature by a variety of geographers and archaeologists, such as Ellsworth Huntington (1914) and E. B. Sayles (n.d.). Nonetheless, the Cloverdale Indian Dam continues to appear in listings of prehistoric Southwestern reservoirs and other water control features (for example Crown 1987a: 220). Archaeological reconnaissances in the study area from the 1920s to as late as the 1960s were intended to document the northern extent of the Chihuahuan polychrome tradition (Brand 1943; Carey 1955, 1956; Kidder and others 1949; Sauer and Brand 1930; Sayles 1936) or were the byproducts of several excavation programs in the boot heel region of New Mexico (Lambert and Ambler 1961; McCluney 1965a). Generally, the reports for these surveys disclose repeated visits to the same large late prehistoric pueblos, and publications provide minimal descriptive detail and locational information. When available, however, archival notes and records of these investigators hold the potential for important clues to features and site structure no longer visible because of vandalism and other degrading forces. Systematic surveys have been infrequent. Frank Findlow and Suzanne De Atley (De Atley 1980; De Atley and Findlow 1982; Findlow and De Atley 1976, 1978) surveyed randomly placed 3.25 by 0.1 mile transects in each of the 16 Animas and Playas Valley townships defined as their Hidalgo Project study area. They estimate systematic coverage of 4 percent of the study area, and they recorded, collected, and in some cases conducted limited excavations at over 100 sites. The records and materials are not currently available in any public repository; evaluation of survey results must rest on published literature. John Douglas (1987) conducted a survey of similar intensity on approximately 1,700 ha (4,200 acres) or 1.7 percent of the San Bernardino Valley in southeastern Arizona. There is a long history of poorly reported, small excavations by both archaeological professionals and amateurs in the Malpai Borderlands (for example, see Carey 1931; Mills and Mills 1971; Myers 1985; Osborne and Hayes 1938). However, larger excavation programs, culminating in detailed reports, are far fewer in number. The work by A. V. Kidder and the Cosgroves (1949) at the Pendleton Ruin constitutes the most intensive excavation at a single site in the study area (table 3.1 and fig. 3.1). They considered the site to be an “outpost” of Casas Grandes at the start of work at Pendleton in 1933. The absence of a variety of Casas Grandes-style architectural traits (for example collared postholes, platform and scalloped hearths, keyhole doorways), high frequencies of local Cloverdale Corrugated utility wares, and relatively low amounts of Chihuahuan polychrome pottery suggested a “peripheral” development for which they adopted the term “Animas,” previously used by Gladwin (1933) and Sayles (1936). A focus on the relationship between the late Paul R. Fish Suzanne K. Fish