Aztec Ruins Administrative History

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE COLLECTIONS

There are two collections of specimens from Aztec Ruins National Monument in the custody of the National Park Service, one at the monument and one in the depository at the Western Archeological and Conservation Center in Tucson. Two main accessions of these articles do not belong to the government, however, but remain the property of the American Museum of Natural History. Not only has there never been a gift of any artifacts to the National Park Service, but the American Museum never has extended to the National Park Service any permanent loan agreement. Recent correspondence indicates that so long as curation remains reasonably adequate, the museum will be satisfied to have the collection stay where it is and a formal loan document may be prepared at some future date. [37] After almost 70 years, there is no feeling of urgency in the matter.

Accession 1 is composed of the representative sample of objects that Morris, acting as agent for the American Museum, temporarily loaned in 1927 for the display Custodian Boundey arranged in seven rooms of the ruin. These were things in storage at the American Museum field house adjacent to the monument and came from diggings done after the major excavations had terminated. Morris included items from the Annex, three courtyard kivas, and the small-scale work carried out in the summers of 1924 and 1925, as well as heavy or bulky objects from earlier clearing. The loan agreement signed by Morris and Boundey listed 261 specimens. [38] However, an inventory done in 1988 shows a total of 277 entries in Accession 1. A wrapped burial from Room 153 (F.S. 3977) is included. This increase likely resulted from Morris having added to the displays after Faris became custodian. Of these specimens, 120 remain at Aztec, with 22 listed as being at Aztec but currently missing. One hundred thirty-three specimens of this accession are at the Western Archeological and Conservation Center, with two items in that file checked as missing. [39]

The remainder of the specimens obtained during phases of the American Museum of Natural History project were lumped together as Accession 8 in the monument cataloguing begun in 1934. An array of perishables, the garden-variety stone implements, pots restored since the 1920s and those not regarded as choice, batches of potsherds, debitage, and animal bone fragments are in this group. The inventory of 1988 lists 185 specimens of this accession as being at Aztec Ruins National Monument, with 21 missing. The tabulation of Accession 8 at the Western Archeological and Conservation Center is 1,424 specimens, with six missing. Together, a total of 1,636 artifacts is in Accession 8. [40]

Accessions 1 and 8, therefore, account for 1,913 American Museum specimens. A list of specimens Morris compiled about the time the monument was to be expanded to include the last of the American Museum land totaled 2,234 items. [41] The discrepancy between his figure and the current tally cannot be explained. The inadequate storage and security arrangements that formerly existed at Aztec and the number of times the objects were moved (from Aztec to Globe to Tucson) likely led to losses.

Six sequences of excavations on the monument have produced assemblages of specimens, including two burial bundles. These excavations were to clear rooms for a museum (1927), to realign the visitor trail (1938), to stabilize parts of the East Ruin (1956), to open the Hubbard Mound (1953-54), to trench a trash mound in front of the visitor center (1960), and to stabilize five rooms in the North and West wings (1984). A large return of artifacts came from Civil Works Administration excavations carried out in 1934 in connection with the cleaning up of the monument. Other scattered random finds have been made during the government's stewardship. Also in the past, private individuals donated personally collected artifacts to the monument. The majority of objects obtained in these diverse ways are or will be housed at the Western Archeological and Conservation Center, with only a small assortment being kept at the monument, where space and curatorial staff are restricted.

At the end of 1988, for the first time in the monument's history, cataloging of locally held specimens and their record keeping were brought up-to-date. A backlog of 31 large boxes of miscellaneous potsherds, lithics, bone fragments, and bits of wood, which for years had been in the administration building basement, was processed by Archaeological Enterprises, of Farmington. [42] The 1,100-plus new catalogue entries created from this effort have limited scientific value because of the relative unimportance of the materials in the total panorama of Anasazi material culture. That is why they remained ignored for so long. As a sign of the times, this cataloging of what Morris thought of as waste cost $15,000, or half the total expenditures for his six years of excavation. [43] Nevertheless, the slate at the monument is cleared of uncatalogued materials.

The approximately 60,000 specimens obtained in 1984 are being processed at the regional office in Santa Fe. This collection contains a large amount of organic material, which supplements earlier finds of the same kind of objects. The entire written catalogue file, including specimens in National Park Service facilities and the two American Museum of Natural History accessions, is being computerized using the Automated National Catalog system.

Although not as diverse or special as the collection in New York, the National Park Service assortment does afford research possibilities, such as those being undertaken by Peter McKenna. [44] In addition to supplementing data from the American Museum artifacts, some categories of objects are more plentiful in the government holdings. These include 94 projectile points, 53 grooved stone axes, and 287 bone awls, not including whatever is in the collection being processed. In regard to the distinctions between Chaco and Mesa Verde material culture, most of the finds from Kiva Q and Kiva R are available in these assemblages. Since Morris used these specimens to buttress his theory of sequential occupations, their study might be useful in segregating Chacoan diagnostics.