rugated potsherds which appear to be from a single jar. 

 The pottery would date the site at around a.b. 1000. The 

 relative scarcity of artifacts is a significant factor in inferring 

 the type of activity that may have been performed there. 

 From other archaeological sources and from analogy 

 with present-day Pueblo Indian agricultural practices, we 

 have hypothesized that the site represents a temporary agri- 

 cultural field camp used by people who maintained perma- 

 nent residence at one of the pueblo villages in the valley 

 bottom. During the short growing season the Hopi Indians 



appears that the Indians began to abandon their numerous 

 small pueblos, coming to live together in larger and fewer 

 villages. It has been suggested that this aggregation may 

 have served to insure greater economic cooperation during 

 the time of hardship. 



We hypothesize that it was during this time of significant 

 changes in the habitat and social organization that the In- 

 dians began farming the terrace adjacent to the site we exca- 

 vated in addition to similar terraces on the mountain side. 

 What we may be seeing is an agricultural pattern similar to 



Excavated basalt structure at Hay Hollow included sherd cluster (upper center of photo) 

 and firepil and possible cobble ring (left of intersecting lines in right of photo.) 



often build small temporary shelters near their fields because 

 the fields are not uncommonly located far from their homes. 

 It is frequently necessary for the Indians to stay close to the 

 field to keep away birds and other animals that might de- 

 stroy the crop. Another feature related to the site and 

 deserving comment was a number of small boulders in a 

 pile near the edge of the terrace. The Indians may ha\e 

 made this pile in the process of removing these stones from 

 the terrace in order to make it more suitable for growing 

 their corn. 



We have strong evidence to suggest that sometime about 

 A.D. 1000 there was an apparently significant meteorological 

 change in the area. There was a shift from a more or less 

 even yearly distribution of rainfall to a pattern of summer 

 maximum precipitation as is typical in the Southwest today. 

 It is believed that this change made maize farming in the 

 valley precarious. Simultaneous with change in habitat it 



that of the contemporary Pueblo Indians. To prevent wide- 

 spread starvation, they plant their corn on a number of 

 different types of land with varying slopes, and soils, so that 

 if the summer thundershowers destroy the crop on one type 

 of landform, the entire crop will not be lost. We suggest 

 that a "cover-all-bets" agricultural practice similar to this 

 may have been emerging in the Hay Hollow Valley at this 

 time. There are additional data which tend to support 

 this hypothesis. It appears, however, that this innovation 

 in agricultural practices was not enough to sustain the pop- 

 ulation. The valley was abandoned around a.d. 1300 and 

 the Indians moved to areas with permanent streams. 



The small site that we excavated is in itself insignificant, 

 but it provides us with additional information concerning 

 modifications of subsistence patterns concomitant with 

 with changes in the habitat and social organization in Hay 

 Hollow Valley at approximately a.d. 1000. 



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