Throughout the course of the last century as Archaeologists have reckoned with the archaeological record of the Greater Southwest, three major cultural groups have been fairly well defined: the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi. Where these cultures seem to come together after the "Great Drought" around AD 1280 and particularly at the end of the 14th century, especially in southeastern Arizona, archaeologists have recognized and attempted to define a cultural phenomenon that has been labeled "Salado." Hence the Salado problem: that is, who were the Salado, where did they come from, and how and why did they develop?
Several theories have been devised to address these questions. These theories include: migration-that is the movement of peoples into new territories mixing with extant populations to form a new cultural identity (e.g. see Gladwin 1937, Haury 1945, Johnson 1965, and Wasley 1968); ideology-meaning that a new form of belief system (like a religion or "regional cult") developed to aid in the integration of disparate peoples or to tie related yet distant peoples together (e.g. see Crown 1994); and environmental adaptation-similar or common stylistic variation in material traits as a response to local differences in ecological conditions (e.g. see Nelson and LeBlanc 1986).
Recently, the Salado phenomenon has become a very hot topic in Southwestern archaeology. As archaeologists have begun to concentrate on solving this "problem," many have turned their attention to southeastern Arizona. Consequently, the Solomonsville site has received their attention. But to date, what we know of the site is sketchy and where it appears in the work of others little is actually said of it. This is primarily due to the fact that the Solomonsville site has been investigated by many different people at different times. Each of them has concentrated on different areas of the site. And the collections and information each has gathered from the site is stored at separate institutions. In addition to this, the site has seen more than its fair share of looting so that today, little of it remains intact. Furthermore, while the site has been examined numerous times, no single report has ever been created to integrate all of the information that has so far been gathered from the Solomonsville site.
When I first took on this project, it was my understanding that I would be dealing simply with the materials here in Boulder that were collected from the Solomonsville site in 1931 by Oscar Tatman. However, I quickly realized that if I wanted to understand anything about the site, I would have to try to integrate all of the work that has ever been done there-that is to create a site report for the Solomonsville Site. This task proved to be easier said than done.
The majority of my thesis work revolves around the Solomonsville material collections currently stored at the University of Colorado. These included examples of lithic, ceramic, bone and shell artifacts along with several photographs, drawings, correspondences and original field notes. My primary task was to analyze and describe these materials. However, since the time that these materials were originally sent back to the University Museum (almost 70 years ago) many problems have arisen with their care and management. Throughout the course of my work I was able to sort out several inconsistencies with the Solomonsville records and made a general accounting of what was actually in the museum's possession.
I described each of the lithic artifacts and where it was possible, found analogs within the archaeological literature-particularly concerning Salado cultural remains-to describe them. For the ceramics, I modeled my analysis on that done by Dean Wilson (1998) for the Ormand Village Site, a roughly contemporaneous site in western New Mexico. In addition to sorting out a basic ceramic typology for the Solomonsville collection, I recorded several measurements and calculated statistical attributes in the hope that future archaeologists would be able to utilize this information. I conducted similar analyses on the bone and shell artifacts, however these collections were far less extensive.
For each of the Solomonsville artifacts, I took a series of digital photographs depicting most of them from at least three angles. While the body of my thesis contains only a small sampling of the photographs taken of the artifacts from the Solomonsville site, I have arranged for the digital photographs along with my handwritten attribute forms to remain at the University Museum to be used by other archaeologists.
In addition to examining the artifacts and associated notes here at the University of Colorado, I applied for and received a Van Riper Grant from the University Museum to conduct a visit to the Curtis Ranch in Safford, Arizona in order to see the site for myself. While I was there, I spoke with the landowner, the Safford area archaeologist for the Bureau of Land Management, and another local (avocational) archaeologist. This trip proved to be invaluable in that it provided me with first hand insight into the layout of the Solomonsville site and allowed me to gather some information that would have otherwise been unavailable.
What I learned during the course my thesis work was that there has been a lot more done at the Solomonsville site than I had originally anticipated. I received several small site reports from the Arizona State Museum and was able to combine the information they contained with that amassed by Fewkes in 1904, the Mills in 1978 and what I was able to learn about the collections here in my possession to come up with a more complete picture of the inhabitants and history of the Solomonsville site. During the course of my work I was also able to establish a good rapport with other archaeologists studying the region such as Dr. Jim Neely at UT Austin.
My thesis concentrates primarily on an examination of the materials gathered from the Solomonsville Site by Oscar Tatman for the University of Colorado in 1931. In addition to the work Tatman carried out at Solomonsville, numerous professional and avocational archaeologists have examined the site over the last century as well. However, none of these reports-taken alone-provides sufficient information about the site to construct a coherent picture of its inhabitants. Therefore, my thesis attempts to briefly integrate all of the materials and reports available about the Solomonsville Site in order to construct such a picture.
The Solomonsville Site is located approximately 20 meters above the south side of the Gila River on a flat terrace directly adjacent to the river's flood plain. The site lies about three miles (4.8 km) east of Solomon in Graham County, Arizona.
It sits on approximately 10 acres (roughly 4 hectares) of private land that has been owned by the Curtis family since the beginning of the 20th century.
The property lies within the "Pueblo Viejo" archaeological district of the Safford Valley. Fewkes characterized the "Pueblo Viejo" archaeological district as the area from northeast of San Jose to Pima between Mount Graham and the Bonita Mountains (Fewkes 1904: 168).
The Solomonsville Site has been examined on numerous occasions by both professional and amateur archaeologists. This presentation will focus primarily on the work conducted by Fewkes, Mills, and Tatman.
The Solomonsville Site has been known by at least two other names, including the Buena Vista Ruin (Fewkes 1904) and the Curtis Ranch Site (Mills and Mills 1978).
Walter Fewkes (1904) was the first person to systematically investigate and report on the Solomonsville Site (i.e. Buena Vista Ruin). Fewkes visited the Pueblo Viejo region in 1897 and described the site along with others from the Safford Valley in the 22nd Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology 1900-1901.
Fewkes characterized the layout of the Buena Vista Ruin as a "rancheria," consisting of several separate mounds (some of which showed evidence of containing rooms) surrounding a larger central-mound structure (House Two in this report). Fewkes also noted the presence of two large rounded ground depressions at the site that he assumed were used as reservoirs. At least one of these, however, may have been the remnant of a Hohokam-style ballcourt. Fewkes also provided the first site plan for the Buena Vista Ruin. His plan is quite useful in that it illustrates many of the archaeological and modern components that were at the site in 1897 and shows their relative positioning.
In the summer of 1931, the University Museum of Natural History at the University of Colorado under the direction of Earl Morris sent Oscar Tatman to examine and excavate the ruins on the Curtis Ranch in order to procure archaeological specimens (particularly pottery) for the Museum.
Tatman spent a single field season on the Curtis Ranch in 1931 and sent all of the materials he collected from the Solomonsville Site back to the University Museum in Boulder. The landowner prohibited subsequent excavations by Tatman at Solomonsville. Although museum records fail to elaborate as to why Tatman was forbidden to excavate the site further, correspondences between Tatman and Morris hint at the possibility that outside pressure from the local Mormon community may have influenced the landowner to bar Tatman from the site.
Site Plan by Mills and Mills (1978)
Avocational archaeologists Jack and Vera Mills compiled a self-published report detailing the work they completed at the Solomonsville Site in 1978 entitled The Curtis Site: A Prehistoric Village in the Safford Valley. Although the Mill's report does not describe all of the archaeological remains present at the Curtis Ranch, it does provide a reasonably comprehensive description of some of the main areas and structures from the site along with a few scale drawings from their roomblock excavations. The components described by the Mills include a large cremation area and an older occupation component underlying the central house mound. The Mills' efforts also produced a fairly good overall site plan. Although it is not to scale, their plan of the Curtis ranch provides a useful overview of the property and the site.
Many artifacts were recovered as a result of the Mills' investigation on the Curtis Ranch. These are currently housed at Eastern Arizona College in Safford. However, college authorities would not allow me (or anyone else) access to those materials. The college's reluctance to allow anyone access to their archaeological collections leaves the condition and future of the Mills' collection from the Curtis Ranch uncertain. Whether the collection is intact and/or usable remains unknown.
The Solomonsville Site has been characterized as one of the largest and most important sites along the Gila River (Altschul 1983, Mills and Mills 1978, Woodson and Crary n.d.). However, in its present condition it exhibits the effects of continued and severe abuse. Impacts to the site have included ranching and farming activities, such as the construction of corals, buildings, silos, and watering trenches on top of existing archaeological remains, as well as the housing of livestock in the immediate area of those remains. Other impacts have involved the repeated excavation of the Curtis property by various parties including expeditions sponsored by the University of Colorado, The University of Arizona, the Boy Scouts of America, and other various private individuals. In addition, at present-and presumably in the past-the site is heavily subjected to looting and other acts of vandalism unauthorized by the landowner.
Archaeological components at the Solomonsville Site consist of a large pueblo compound including evidence of an "older village," the relatively unexplored remains of an earlier pit-house village, at least one ballcourt and/or possibly a reservoir, at least one cremation area , and a proposed canal system.
While the presence of each of these archaeological elements has been mentioned in numerous reports (e.g. Fewkes 1904, Hough 1907, Tuohy 1959, Mills and Mills 1978) no one report has attempted to consolidate a description of each of these into a single comprehensive account. Several of these features (namely the pithouse village, the reservoir, and canal system) have never been fully described or mapped. Furthermore, a general map depicting the location of all of these features has never been created.
Not all of these components are visible at the Solomonsville Site today. In its current condition, extensive, intense archaeological excavations would be required to confirm the location of many of these elements-specifically the pithouse village, canals, reservoir, and cremation areas. Due to the vandalism that has occurred-and is still occurring-at the site it is likely that most of these components have been severely impacted.
The large pueblo compound at the Solomonsville Site comprises at least four separate roomblock structures. In his field notes, Tatman provides a brief description for each of the three house mounds in which he undertook excavations. He refers to these as houses One, Two, and Three. Most of Tatman's excavations took place in House One. Houses Two and Three were examined less thoroughly.
Fewkes also made note of several house mounds (including the central mound or House Two) at the Solomonsville Site. His plan of the site indicates that he carried out limited testing in at least two of these house mounds; the central mound and one other to the west of it.
The Mills also carried out extensive excavations in several of the roomblock structures within the pueblo compound at the Solomonsville Site. While it is uncertain whether the Mills were excavating in exactly the same locations as Tatman on the Curtis ranch, notes and diagrams from both of these expeditions suggest that there was at least some overlap.
There is also reported to be an earlier Mogollon/Mimbres, or San Simon pithouse village site on the Curtis property to the northeast of the ballcourt. This pithouse village site has never been properly documented or mapped. A number of sherds included in the Solomonsville collection-perhaps indicative of an earlier Mogollon manifestation-may have come from this earlier village site. These were examined by Wasley sometime in the 1960's and include examples of Casa Grande Red-on-buff wares along with Mimbres Black-on-white and Encinas Red-on-brown wares and a distinct lack of later ceramic types such as Salado polychromes and Tusayan wares. While no first hand evidence for the existence of the pithouse village was obtained for this report, local archaeologists and the current landowner confirmed its presence.
The Solomonsville Site contains at least one large ballcourt, and possibly others. While Tatman never mentioned the presence of ballcourts at the Solomonsville Site, according to Wilcox and Sternberg, a total of three ballcourts are purported to be located on the Curtis property (1983: 102). Their account includes at least partial dimensions for two of these, and notes the orientation of the larger one as 105' east of north.
My review of the various other site reports and maps recorded for the Solomonsville Site has uncovered references to only two possible ballcourts at the site. These include a large oval shaped depression that is unmistakably a Hohokam style ballcourt (which I call Ballcourt A), and a smaller depression that has been referred to in several reports as a reservoir but may be a small ballcourt (called Ballcourt B). Fewkes first recorded both of these features in his 1904 report. The third ballcourt mentioned by Wilcox and Sternberg, although reportedly surveyed, is not described and does not appear in any other literature. If it does exist, its location and dimensions are unknown.
The Solomonsville Site's total range of occupation has been placed from as early as the Two Dog/Encinas phase beginning around the late AD 900's in the Pueblo Viejo region, to as late as the Safford phase which ends circa AD 1450 (Woodson and Crary 1997).
Two independent sets of absolute dates have also been generated from the Solomonsville Site including six archaeomagnetic dates and four dendrochronological dates. The samples used to generate the archaeomagnetic dates were recovered by the Mills from several hearths within the roomblocks at the Solomonsville Site. The dates range from approximately AD 1180 to 1405. The four dendrochronological samples used to determine dates for the Solomonsville Site are housed at the University of Arizona's Tree Ring Laboratory in Tucson. While a total of 84 Solomonsville specimens are cataloged at the University of Arizona, only 4 proved to be sufficient for dating. These specimens, all pinyon pine, posses no on-site provenience, and it is believed that they may have been recovered from back-dirt piles or other out-of-context locations on the Curtis Ranch (Dean, personal communication, February 2000). The dates determined for these specimens range from AD 1113vv to 1239vv. (However, these do not represent cut dates and the outer rings from these samples may have been removed)
Tatman's notes along with numerous correspondences between Tatman and Earl Morris, as well as 23 photographs taken by Tatman at the Solomonsville Site are housed within the Earl Morris Archives at the University Museum. It must be pointed out that Tatman's methodology for recording his findings was inconsistent. Tatman did not use stratigraphic methods to excavate the roomblocks at the Solomonsville Site, nor document any of the rooms with plan sketches or other diagrams. Photos taken by Tatman at the site illustrate that in at least some cases he simply dug into features in order to remove the archaeological materials originally placed there. The material evidence collected by Tatman from the Solomonsville Site in 1931 includes ceramic, lithic, bone and shell artifacts. According to Tatman's field notes, a total of 213 field specimens were collected during his 1931 expedition.
Ceramics. The ceramic collection from the Solomonsville Site includes both whole and reconstructed vessels, as well as 919 sherds. As is the case with all of the Solomonsville material collections, a total of 17 ceramic vessels appear to be missing from the University Museum. Whether these have been destroyed, stolen, or simply misplaced is indeterminable.
Lithics. There are a total of 53 lithic artifacts from the Solomonsville Site currently contained in the collections at the University Museum. These include examples of ground stone and chipped stone, as well as mineral paint stones and a variety of other exotic forms. The Solomonsville collection at the University Museum is also missing many lithic objects. These include a large number of ground stone axes, manos, and a variety of other stone artifacts. While it is possible that some of these may have been stolen over time, it is more likely that many were misplaced, mislabeled, or loaned out without proper documentation.
Bone and Shell Artifacts. The Solomonsville collection contains of a total of 10 bone artifacts. Of these, only five possess on-site provenience data. The shell materials from the Solomonsville Site total 17 items. These comprise what may be a trumpet, as well as ornaments and pieces of jewelry, such as pendants, beads, and rings. The shell chapter of my thesis also includes the findings of Clarence J. McCoy, Jr., a Research Associate at the University Museum from 1962 to 1964 who previously examined the shell materials from the Solomonsville Site and determined their place of origin as most likely the Gulf of California.
Tatman's field notes contain information regarding a total of 46 human burials, including two secondary cremations all found within or around roomblock settings. Nearly all of the burials excavated by Tatman were primary inhumations found below the floors of habitation and storage structures. The majority of these were of infants and children. Only one formal adult burial was recorded in Tatman's field notes. For most of the burials, Tatman provided details concerning where within each room they were found, as well as what, if any offerings were interred with the dead. The majority of the burials excavated by Tatman were located in modest pits beneath the floors in the roomblock he refers to as House One. Six others were discovered in Tatman's House Two. None are recorded from the area Tatman refers to as House Three. With the exception of two secondary cremations, and the remains of three adult individuals that were found in situ, all of the burials noted by Tatman were classified as primary inhumations. Most of these entailed single interments, however five graves held the remains of multiple individuals-all children.
While many of the Solomonsville artifacts were taken from burials, the remains discovered within those contexts were presumably not removed. This assumption is based on the fact that there are no burial remains from the Solomonsville Site housed within the University Museum. In addition, Tatman does not discuss what was done with any of the human remains he encountered. Nor are there any museum records to indicate that remains were sent back from the field. It is therefore likely that Tatman left all of the human remains he encountered at the site.
The presence of ceramic vessels associated with the burial remains recovered from the roomblocks in which Tatman excavated allows for the tentative dating of those structures. However, as discussed earlier, because Tatman's methods lacked stratigraphic control it is possible that he excavated through multiple occupation episodes at Solomonsville. Still, the prevalence of Salado polychrome ceramics, particularly Gila and Tonto polychromes, associated with the burial remains Tatman discovered beneath the floors of houses One and Three at the Solomonsville Site makes it possible to place the occupation of those structures to sometime after AD 1300, and more likely into the mid-1400's.
At first glance, the Solomonsville Site exhibits traits usually associated with a Saladoan occupation, including adobe/masonry compound architecture, both inhumation and cremation style burials, and the appearance of Pinto, Gila, and Tonto polychrome ceramics. However, archaeological evidence suggests that the site was occupied-or perhaps reoccupied-over an extremely long period of time. The artifactual evidence and architectural components present at the Solomonsville Site make it fairly obvious that the inhabitants of the site were at one time or another (at least) influenced by all three of the major Southwestern culture groups: Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi.
Given the Solomonsville Site's geographic location and the length of its occupation, it is not surprising that we find archaeological traits associated with each of the major cultural groups in the Greater Southwest there. However, whether these traits represent the presence of each of these groups due to migration or simply an exchange of trade goods and/or ideas remains beyond the scope of the information that has so far been obtained from the Solomonsville Site. Still, evidence associated with an earlier Mogollon, Hohokam, and Western Anasazi presence at the Solomonsville Site provides clues to the development and spread of traits referred to as "Salado" in the Safford Valley.