State historical fund gives park $301,000

State historical fund gives park $301,000

Jan. 29, 2001

By Janelle Holden
Journal staff writer

Documenting newly-found archaeological sites, mapping Spruce Tree House, and preserving artifacts are all on Mesa Verde National Park’s to-do list. To help complete the projects, the Colorado State Historical Fund recently awarded the park $301,000.

After the Bircher and Pony fires, which burned more than 20,000 acres of the park in 2000, the park was awarded federal money to help assess the damage to sites already recorded in the park’s files.

But now that the historical fund has agreed to grant the park $71,000 for that project, park archaeologists can look for sites they haven’t seen before.

Linda Towle, chief of research and resource management at Mesa Verde, said that 90 percent of the park has been surveyed, but this money will fund a survey of an additional 6,000 acres.

Towle said that during last year’s damage assessment, archaeologists stumbled across 200 sites that were not on the maps. Now that those sites have been recorded using a Global Positioning Satellite, the archaeologists will be able to go back and record those sites.

"That isn’t as large a number as we found in the area after the Chapin 5 fire, but we may find some more," said Towle.

The new sites are generally rubble mounds that have collapsed on either the valley bottoms or on the mesa top. They vary in size from small, multi-room pueblos to somewhat larger sites. The park is not planning to do any excavation or testing of the sites, so archaeologists will record only what is visible on the ground.

"What’s important too is how these sites are placed across the landscape, and from looking at the artifacts on the surface we can attempt to date the site. Whether it’s an early Basketmaker operation or whether it’s Pueblo II, we can get some idea of when these sites were occupied and when a particular canyon bottom or mesa top was heavily inhabited," said Towle.

One of the most popular sites in the park, Spruce Tree House, will also receive more attention because of a grant. The historical fund chipped in $130,000 to help complete a detailed architectural map of the site.

Towle said a map was completed in 1935 of Spruce Tree’s floor plan, but archaeologists are now working on a detailed, stone-by-stone documentation of the standing walls.

"This grant will allow us to continue through this summer with the same level of documentation, and then we’ll have a very, very accurate map of the standing architecture and all the other features that are in that site today," said Towle.

Visitors can watch the archaeologists at work, which Towle said only adds to their experience.

The fund also gave $100,000 to help update the park’s research center, which serves as a repository for more than 3 million objects in the archaeological, historical, and natural-resource collections.

The building was constructed in 1958 as a temporary archaeological field laboratory, and is substandard, according to Towle.

The historical-fund grant will serve as part of the matching funds for a $750,000 Save America’s Treasures grant to renovate the building. Towle said the renovations include re-boxing artifacts in acid-free containers, constructing compact shelving, and putting in a new heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning system to create stable humidity and temperature.

"By the time we’re through, that building will be a much better working environment as well as a much better environment for the artifacts," said Towle.