Department of Anthropology 



Research and Expeditions 



The second season of archaeological work near Vernon, Arizona, was 

 initiated by the 1957 Southwest Archaeological Expedition under the 

 leadership of Dr. Paul S. Martin, Chief Curator of Anthropology, 

 who was assisted by Dr. John B. Rinaldo, Assistant Curator of Ar- 

 chaeology (see page 34). Five months were spent in the field. The 

 first few weeks were used in building an addition to camp head- 

 quarters. The remainder of the summer was devoted to excavations 

 with a crew of six men. 



Six sites, or archaeological areas, were investigated. The two 

 earliest were campsites located on the beaches of now vanished lakes. 

 The ancient hearths, marked by circular piles of burned rocks, had 

 been recently exposed to view by rains and winds (no house floors or 

 early pit-houses were encountered) . Work at these sites yielded an 

 abundant collection of manos, metates, projectile points, scrapers, 

 choppers, knives, blades, hammerstones, some burned animal-bones, 

 and charcoal that may yield dates when tested by the radiocarbon 

 method. We believe that these artifacts were made and used by the 

 earliest inhabitants of the area and we have tentatively assigned 

 these specimens to the Concho Complex, which is believed to be from 

 2,000 to 3,000 years old. Actually, we know little about the culture 

 of the Concho Complex people, but, as we now envision it, the Con- 

 cho Complex was merely one local environmental specialization of a 

 widely spread culture known as the Desert Culture, which has been 

 very recently delineated and described by Dr. Jesse Jennings. The 

 Cochise substratum of the Mogollon culture described in a half dozen 

 or so Museum monographs also belonged to this larger unit, the Des- 

 ert Culture, which extended from Oregon to the Valley of Mexico and 

 from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast. 



Another series of excavations was conducted in a pit-house village. 

 Eight houses were dug, some of which were 6 feet deep, 12 feet across, 

 and roundish, with roofs of poles, brush, and a thick layer of native 

 adobe supported by upright posts. The entrance was a hatchway in 

 the roof or a lateral truncated tunnel. A hearth was near or in the 

 center of the floor and a storage pit was in some floors. Excava- 

 tions in the pit-houses yielded pottery (whole and broken), burials, 

 milling, rubbing, and pecking stones, mortars and pestles, mauls, a 

 fragment or two of shell bracelets, a tubular tobacco pipe of stone, 

 stone projectile points, knives, scrapers, and saws, and bone awls and 



