Excavation
The initial fieldwork of the Chaco Stratigraphy Project has been designed to obtain new archaeological and geological data from buried features and geological deposits exposed by archaeological excavations in the 1920s. We have reopened sections of deep trenches that were excavated south from the walls of Pueblo Bonito onto the canyon floodplain.
Fill from the trenches has been excavated in arbitrary 20cm levels within grid units established over the study area and tied geospatially to Pueblo Bonito and local geodetic markers. Approximately 90% of the trench fill was screened through 1/4" mesh, 10% through 1/16" mesh, and samples for laboratory fine-screening were taken from trench fill, profile walls and backdirt piles.
All artifacts recovered from the trenches have been inventoried. Detailed analysis of ceramics and lithic material is ongoing at the University of New Mexico under the supervision of Dr. Patricia Crown. Faunal analysis is ongoing at Simon Fraser University by Shaw Badenhorst and Dr. Jonathan Driver.
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