The University of Arizona School of Anthropology’s Rock Art Ranch Fieldschool will conduct its third summer of fieldwork from June 3 to July 5, 2013. The fieldschool is for undergraduate and graduate students at all skill levels. The participants will learn both archaeological survey and excavation techniques. For survey, participants will learn site identification, location and mapping using GPS and a total station; artifact identification, collection and processing; soil and plant identification; and artifact analysis and sourcing. For excavation, the participants will learn mapping at all levels of the site, feature identification, the principles of stratigraphy and their application to the archaeological record, seriation techniques, artifact identification and typology, and basic laboratory procedures. Finally, students will be shown how by combining the techniques of survey and excavation, a more complete understanding of human society in the past can be achieved.

Project Location:  Rock Art Ranch is a private ranch 25 miles southeast of Winslow, AZ, that still raises cattle and bison.  The ranch contains some of the Southwest’s most spectacular rock art dating from 6000 BC to AD 1400, which has been completely documented. The ranch lies in the high desert at 5100’ elevation, in an area used over the past eight thousand years by mobile hunting and gathering groups, early farmers, and later, after A.D. 500, by more sedentary farmers representing archaeological cultures of the adjacent Mogollon Rim and Colorado Plateau regions. No professional archaeological work has been conducted on the ranch or its nearest neighbors other than documentation of the petroglyphs.

For 2013, the fieldschool will focus on finding and describing the archaeological record of the ranch and its neighbors and conducting limited excavations on an early 13th century pueblo of 30-50 rooms. The goals are to gain an understanding of how the landscape was used by groups over the past 6-8000 years, how and why groups migrated to and from the area, and what role the rock art played in communicating identity and ownership. Excavations have already helped develop a tighter chronology for the area and provided details on length of site occupation and subsistence base. Survey by fieldschool participants have located 60 new sites in two summers that cluster in three time periods: Basketmaker II (early agricultural), 1000 BCE-500 CE; Basketmaker III/Pueblo I, 600-900 CE; and Pueblo III, 1100-1250 CE. It is the BMII groups who carved most of the petroglyphs. BMII, BMIII, and PI ancestral pueblo groups occupied pit houses, rooms excavated into the ground, whereas PIII groups built small to medium-size pueblos of 5 to 30 rooms. Each habitation site housed 2-10 families. Indications of farming locales have also been discovered and are helping us understand the complex and lengthy use of Rock Art Ranch over the past 3000 years.

Schedule:  Field and laboratory sessions are from 7 am to 3 pm Monday through Friday. Due to the remote location of the project, trips to Winslow to do laundry and shopping will be done on Saturday afternoon with dinner eaten in town. Sunday’s are free days for exploring or sleeping in.

Field Trips and Lectures:  There will be three field trips: one to the Hopi mesas for an opportunity to see communities and ceremonies of the descendents of some of the groups who lived in the research area; the other to regional archaeological sites managed by the National Park Service or Forest Service. Talks by staff and guests will take place 2-3 evenings a week in the dining hall. These talks will cover the past and present cultures of the region, geology, flora and fauna, dendrochronology, ceramic and lithic analysis, and much more.

Accommodations & Transportation:  Students will stay in wood frame cottages. The wooden cottages have nearby bathroom facilities including showers for men and women. All housing is near the dining hall, which has electricity with two bathrooms and a kitchen. There is also a small museum on site. Breakfast and dinner will be served in the dining hall and lunch will be eaten in the field. Students will be transported in University of Arizona vehicles to Rock Art Ranch from Tucson at the beginning and end of the fieldschool.

Course Instructor:  

E. Charles Adams is a Professor in the School of Anthropology and Curator of Archaeology in the Arizona State Museum, both at the University of Arizona. Research interests include Protohistoric and historic Pueblo archaeology, Hopi ethnography, religion and ritual in the archaeological record, settlement patterns and land use. Dr. Adams will direct survey and is overall principal investigator for the project.

Participating Faculty:

Vincent M. LaMotta:  Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Chicago. Research interests include the archaeology of the Hopi region of the Southwest, Pueblo and Ancestral Pueblo history and cultures, ancient religion and ritual, site formation processes, archaeological method and theory, ceramic analysis, and zooarchaeology. Dr. LaMotta will direct excavations. http://www.uic.edu/depts/anth/faculty/lamotta.html

Richard C. Lange:  Research Specialist Principal, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona. Research interests include long-term survey and excavation in the area through the ASM Homol’ovi Research Program, cliff dwellings in the Sierra Ancha of central Arizona, settlement patterns and land use, ceramic and lithic analysis, and field methods

Course Credits: Registration is by permission of the instructor obtained after submitting an application form. (click here) Application forms are also available from Ann Samuelson, Anthropology undergraduate advisor. Applications must be submitted by March 15, 2013 for acceptance. Students will be notified of acceptance by March 22 in time for priority registration.

Registration is required for one 3-credit course on labwork and one 4-credit course on fieldwork. The courses are Anth 455a and 455b, section 1 (undergraduate credit) or Anth 555a and 555b, section 1 (graduate credit). Each student will do a research project in addition to fieldwork to earn a grade.

Grades will be based on the student’s participation in all field activities and a project done in consultation with the instructor to be completed by the end of the session.

Tuition and Fees:  Field school registration is subject to normal University of Arizona tuition and fees for summer school, which are the same for in-state and out-of-state students. In 2012 these fees were $348/credit hour for undergrads and $412/credit hour for graduate students. A special course fee of $1200.00 for 7 credit hours covers field school costs and is due at registration.