The manhunt for three suspects accused of killing a police officer forced the evacuation of 15 students from a Fort Lewis College archaeology dig, a professor said Saturday.

Members of the Fort Lewis archaeology field-school class left the Pigg Site, located near the Lowry Ruins in Montezuma County, after being told the suspects were believed to be nearby.

Mona Charles, field director and archaeology professor, said her team was told by a local resident, who owns property near the Pigg Site, and later by the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Department that the area had to be cleared. Authorities also evacuated people from the Hovenweep National Monument and residents of McElmo Canyon.

"We had cell phones in contact with the Montezuma Sheriff’s Department," Charles said. "It didn’t take long to get out. It only took us 20 minutes."

Fort Lewis owns the Pigg Site, an ancestral Puebloan village a few hundred yards from the Lowry Ruins. The two sites have generated more than 260 identified ruins and are believed to have been occupied from 1050 to 1300 A.D. They compose the second-largest prehistoric Pueblo Indian community in Southwest Colorado.

The Fort Lewis anthropology department has been excavating the sites since 1991 under the direction of professor Jim Judge. In that time, more than 28,000 artifacts have been detected.

Fort Lewis anthropology chairwoman Susan Riches said the class usually returns from the site on weekends.

Charles said her field staff will decide today what direction they will take as the search for the suspects continues.