n e w a cq u i s i t i o n
Community Center Preserved in East-Central Arizona Late prehistoric pueblo represents key periods of change in the area.
Sherwood Ranch ✪
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JIM WALKER
S
herwood Ranch Pueblo, a masonry village with approximately 300 rooms, is the largest of about five contemporary village sites located along the upper Little Colorado River. It is thought to have served as a center for what was a large community during the 14th century.The site’s current landowners, Wendell and Ruth Sherwood, have agreed to donate the site, formerly known as Raven Ruin, to the Conservancy. “Sherwood Ranch Pueblo is centrally located within a cluster of 14th century sites and is by far the largestat least twice the size of its contemporaries,” said Keith Kintigh, a professor of anthropology at Arizona State University who has devoted most of his career to researching the late prehistory of this area.“Additionally, the village was evidently occupied much longer than its contemporaries, all of which suggest the site’s
These exposed masonry walls are still standing at Sherwood Ranch Pueblo. The Conservancy will stabilize them as part of this project.
premiere political and likely economic importance.” The pueblo saw two periods of occupation. The first occurred between A.D. 1250 and 1300, a time of a major change in the area’s settlement pattern. People shifted from dispersed settlements into nucleated, single structures situated around plazas or communal architecture.The second period of occupation took place from approximately A.D. 1300 to after 1370. The site contains several distinct styles of well-preserved masonry architecture, multiple kivas and trash deposits. According to Andrew Duff, assistant professor of anthropology at Washington State University, the
upper Little Colorado River area was characterized by numerous groups with distinct cultural and material traits from the 11th through the mid14th century. Populations living in this less densely settled region were actively recruited by residents of the Hopi and Zuni regions to join their settlements. Sherwood Ranch Pueblo was among the last settlements to be inhabited as the regional population migrated north and east to the lands occupied by the Hopi and Zuni.The village is located in an area that figures prominently in the oral traditions of these tribes as well as the traditional histories of western Keresan-speaking groups.
winter • 2002-03
