Lower Zuni River Archeological District facts for kids

The Lower Zuni River Archeological District is a special area in Arizona, near the New Mexico border. It covers about 29,500 acres, which is like 22,000 football fields! This district is home to 89 different ancient sites where people lived a long, long time ago. It's located about 24 miles northeast of St. Johns, Arizona, right along the Zuni River.

Discovering Ancient Life

This area was once home to people from around 800 AD to 1175 AD. Archeologists have found many clues about their lives.

• They found pieces of ceramic pottery, which are pots and dishes made from clay.
• There are also sandstone rubble deposits. These show that people built houses using stones above the ground.
• You can also see petroglyphs (designs carved into rocks) and pictographs (paintings on rocks).

Around 1050 to 1175 AD, the people here lived in a spread-out community. Even though other nearby places stayed busy after 1175 AD, it seems the Zuni River District was no longer lived in after that time.

Early Explorers and Discoveries

Many people have explored this area to learn about its past.

• Between 1880 and 1885, a person named Adolph Bandelier traveled through the district. He wrote down information about sites like Ojo Bonito and Ceadro Springs.
• In 1917, Leslie Spier explored the area. He collected samples and did some small digs. Spier was the first to figure out the timeline of when people lived here.
• In 1931, archeologists dug up a site called Kiatuthlanna. They found that people lived there from 700 AD to 1100 AD. They discovered pithouses (homes dug partly into the ground), jacal structures (buildings made of poles and mud), and a large pueblo (a village with many rooms) that had 49 rooms and 4 kivas (special underground rooms used for ceremonies).
• Other sites, like Hawikuh and Kechipawan, were dug up between 1923 and 1931.
• From 1956 to 1958, William Beeson found 325 sites in the district. He figured out that people lived here from the Basketmaker III Era all the way through the Pueblo IV Period.

The Ojo Bonito Project

In 1984, a big archeological project started in the district. It was called the Ojo Bonito Archaeological Project, and Keith Kintigh led it.

• In the first six years, they found 450 new sites!
• They found very little evidence of people living here before 700 AD.
• They did find one very old site from the Paleo-Indian period. It had projectile points, which are the sharp ends of spears or arrows. These included a Clovis point base and two Pinto Basin points.

Periods of Settlement

Archeologists have divided the time people lived here into different periods:

• 700 AD to early 900s AD: This was the Basketmaker III and early Pueblo I phases. People lived in pithouses along the Zuni River and up on the mesas. They found pieces of pottery like Lino and plain gray types, Kiatuthlanna Black-on-White, and Mogollon Brownwares.
• 900s AD to 1050 AD: This was the Pueblo I through early Pueblo II periods. Sites from this time include stone walls, storage pits, hearths (fireplaces), and clear rooms.
• 1050 AD to 1175 AD: During this time, there was one main settlement. Archeologists found rooms, kiva depressions (places where kivas used to be), and middens (ancient trash heaps). The houses were grouped in clusters of 7 to 12 units, with some distance between clusters. This is similar to other ancient settlements from the Chacoan culture. After 1175 AD, the site became empty.

Coronado's Visit

In 1539, a Spanish explorer named Francisco Vázquez de Coronado passed through this district. He was searching for the legendary Seven Cities of Gold. His group camped somewhere along the Zuni River, close to the Zuni village of Hawikuh.

What the District Looks Like

The Lower Zuni River Archeological District is entirely within the Hinkson Ranch.

• Its western edge is the Arizona-New Mexico border.
• It runs along the Zuni River, with the river's floodplain forming its southern edge.
• An old, deep ditch (called an arroyo) is its eastern border.
• The northern border follows existing fences and dirt roads.

The district contains many interesting features:

• 2 ancient rockshelters (natural caves or overhangs used for shelter)
• 7 artifact scatters (areas where ancient tools or pottery pieces are spread out)
• 23 pithouse scatters (places where remains of pithouses are found)
• 17 rubble scatters (piles of broken stones from old buildings)
• 16 roomblocks (groups of connected rooms)
• 6 stone features (structures made of stone)
• 14 petroglyphs/pictographs (rock carvings and paintings)
• 1 historic residence (an old house)
• 6 corrals (enclosures for animals)

The one historic residence was a house built by Dan Dubois in the late 1880s. He was a friend of Frank Cushing, another famous explorer. This homestead had a multi-room stone house, a stone corral, and a spring. The spring was known as Deer Springs, but it no longer flows today.