4 minute read

Field Notes

Next Article
Letters

Letters

CONSER V ANC Y FieldNotes

SITE UPD AT ES

Advertisement

Preserving Alabama’s First State Capital

SOUTHEAST—The Conservancy is closer to preserving the entire site of Cahawba, near Selma, Alabama, after making four acquisitions over the last six months that total nearly 40 acres. Since 1995, Cahawba has been the target of a long-term Conservancy project to protect the 19th-century remains of Alabama’s first state capital as well as numerous prehistoric sites found within the boundaries of the old town.

The Conservancy has acquired approximately 240 acres of the nearly 400-acre site. These latest acquisitions have consolidated lands purchased in previous acquisitions so that the northern half and the center of the town are now preserved.

The Conservancy’s acquisition includes the Fambro House, one of Cahawba’s two surviving original structures. Cahawba site archaeologist Linda Derry believes the Fambro House will provide a great many clues in researching the construction of other homes at Old Cahawba that are now in ruins, as well as provide an excellent site for new excavations. Derry expects that the area under and around the Fambro House will prove to be a “time capsule” of information about urban antebellum life in Cahawba.

The Conservancy’s work at Cahawba during these projects was made possible by a generous gift from Daniel J. Meador of Virginia, a descendant of the Kirkpatrick family who settled Cahawba, and by financial support from the Cahawba Advisory Committee. As a condition of this support, the Conservancy will transfer these lands to the Alabama Historical Commission for permanent preservation in Old Cahawba Historic Site, where they will be open to the public for interpretation. The Historical Commission also plans to restore the Fambro House to its 1840s appearance and open it to the public after thorough testing by archaeologists and architectural historians.

The preserved lands at Cahawba are open to the public from 9 A.M.to 5 P.M. daily. Conservancy members can call the park at (334) 872-8058 to arrange for a free tour.

Visitors view ruins at Old Cahawba.

Steve Koczan, Southwest regional site maintenance coordinator (middle), and Zuni workers erect a barbedwire fence at the Box S site.

The Conservancy and Zuni Pueblo Forge a Unique Partnership

SOUTHWEST—Located in west central New Mexico, immediately adjacent to the Zuni reservation, the Box S site (known to the Zunis as Heshodan Imk’oskwi’a) is a large ancestral-Zuni pueblo containing about 1,000 masonry rooms thought to have been occupied between A.D. 1260 and 1285. The Conservancy acquired 160 acres containing the pueblo in 1999. In a unique partnership, the Conservancy and the tribal-owned Zuni Cultural Resource Enterprise (ZCRE) completed a number of preservation tasks at the site, including fencing, mapping, and creating a cultural resource management plan for the ruin.

First noted in the archaeological literature by Adolph Bandelier in 1892 and recorded by Leslie Spier in 1917, the pueblo has suffered from the hands of looters over the years. Although some of the looting was done using a backhoe, researchers estimate that at least 80 percent of the site’s deposits remain intact and undisturbed. This summer, under the direction of Jonathan Damp, a ZCRE survey team, using a computer-aided transit called a total station, completed a detailed map of the ruin that will serve as a blueprint for a stabilization project to be completed by ZCRE and the Conservancy sometime this fall.

The Conservancy plans to transfer ownership of this site to the Pueblo of Zuni before the end of the year. The Zunis plan to preserve the site for tribal, scientific, educational, and conservation purposes. The Conservancy and the Zunis hope this unique, innovative preservation project will serve as a model for future interactions between preservationists and Native Americans.

Work Continues at San Marcos

SOUTHWEST—Researchers Dave Thomas from the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Ann Ramenofsky from the University of New Mexico returned this summer to continue their respective projects at Pueblo San Marcos.

Ramenofsky conducted the UNM field school in a continuing research project that included mapping an archaeological profile of an arroyo cut which has exposed walls, floors, and features of a portion of the pueblo. The Conservancy stopped the erosion of San Marcos Arroyo in the mid-1970s by creating a stabilized channel within the arroyo bed that directs water away from the structure. Ramenofsky’s team also conducted testing in each of the midden areas to try to date the deposits in an effort to reconstruct the building, occupation, and abandonment sequences for the site.

Thomas focused again on the 17th-century Franciscan mission church and convento complex. Test excavations conducted in the eastern end of the church revealed fallen walls, but the main doorway and adobe floor are intact. Test excavations in a northern convento room led to the discovery of the baptistery. Additional remote sensing of the complex using soil resistivity to create a subsurface map of the walls and features was also conducted.

Contrary to historical accounts of the destruction of the church in 1680 during the Pueblo Revolt, the research team found no signs of burning or intentional destruction of the church walls or features. It appears that the church and convento complex collapsed over a long period of time following abandonment. Features such as a stone-lined firepit and a sealed doorway indicate that the complex may have been reused after its abandonment in the late 1600s.

This article is from: