GILA CLIFF DWELLINGS Administrative History

National Historic District

In 1986, the entire national monument was documented as an archeological district in the National Register of Historic Places, [41] with the preparation of forms contracted to Southwest Archaeological Consultants, Inc, a firm located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1987, the documentation was approved. Based on Morris' 1968 survey and a draft of The Archeology of Gila Cliff Dwellings, the inventory of sites for the proposed district included a brief chronology of cultural history for the area around the Gila forks. The chronology relied largely on the phase sequence worked out by Fitting for the Cliff-Gila Valley, and included summaries of diagnostic architectural and ceramic traits and of population dynamics for each phase. Where possible, phase descriptions were linked to representative sites in the national monument. As of 1991, this brief overview is the most complete account of cultural history specific to the Gila forks since Vivian's in 1956.

More or less as Vivian had argued 30 years earlier, the significance of the archeology was attributed to the uniquely undisturbed presence of Mimbres sites that ranged in size and phase sufficiently to encompass nearly every manifestation of that cultural branch—although in this case the anomalous and intrusive nature of Gila Cliff Dwellings was noted. Also included was a summary of the monument's research potential, the most important federal criterion for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places according to Stuart and Gauthier, who wrote the book on the subject—at least for New Mexico. The list of research potentials included 19 general problems of chronology, settlement and subsistence, social organization, and demography.

Archeological Survey

In 1988 and 1989, Bradford resurveyed archeological sites in the national monument, using techniques that have improved since the 1968 survey, as well as standardized site forms and photo documentation. His intention was to produce a more detailed report than Morris had and to draw a base map on photogrammetric or orthocontour projections. His report will be forthcoming in 1992.

Other Archeological Research

In her 1980 study Indian Rock Art in the Southwest, Polly Schaafsma included brief allusions to pictographs in the caves of Gila Cliff Dwellings. [42] She dated the designs to the thirteenth century, believing them to have been drawn by people standing on roofs. Schaafsma classified the images as a Mogollon Red, which is a style that appears most commonly in the drainages of the San Francisco River, the upper Gila River, and in extreme south-eastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.

In 1988, Dr. Steven Lambert of Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, offered to analyze several samples of geological substances present at Gila Cliff Dwellings. The proposal originated informally during a passing conversation with the ranger on duty at the cliff site, and the analysis was funded by Sandia Laboratories. In March 1990, Dr. Lambert reported the results of his studies. [43] Two samples of the black coating on a cave ceiling—one shiny and one dull—were analyzed by x-ray diffraction. The shiny sample appeared to be "rich in amorphous carbon" and was presumed to be soot from resinous smoke, confirming previous suppositions. The dull substance did not contain enough carbon to show up in the x-ray, but was also presumed to be the product of smoke. A sample of the shiny coating found on many of the rocks in the caves contained weddellite (dihydrated calcium oxalate), whewellite (monohydrated calcium oxalate), and uric acid hydrate, a layered mineral assemblage that was presumed to be the product of repeated human urination. An alternative suggestion was that human urine may have been applied to hides stretched on the flat rocks during the tanning of leather, a processual technique known to occur during the historic period. Finally, a powdery inflorescence, collected farther up the canyon from the cliff site, was analyzed. This sample was largely quartz and trona, which is a mineral commonly formed by the weathering of silicate rocks such as the local conglomerate.

Another laboratory project initiated in 1988 was the radiocarbon dating of one of 11 Metcalf bean (Phaseolus metcalfei) found during Vivian's 1963 excavation of the cliff dwellings. First proposed by Karen Adams, who had written the ethnobotanical section of The Archeology of Gila Cliff Dwellings, the project was intended to reveal whether or not the beans dated from the prehistoric period, a possibility that would represent the second known occurrence of that bean at a Southwestern prehistoric site. Submitted by Terry Nichols, at the time park ranger for Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, the dating project was financed by the Southwest Regional Office's Division of Anthropology, coordinated by the Western Archeological and Conservation Center, and performed by staff at the University of Arizona.

The bean sample (#72A) was given a C-14 age of 670+/-45 years BP (before present), with a 95% probability for a calibrated age of A.D. 1261-1394, [44] a date that Anderson of the Western Archeological and Conservation Center observed to be "suspiciously in perfect accord with the age of the cliff dwellings." [45]

A second bean (#44-39-7B) from the same group was dated a little more than a year later and broke the synchronicity. That sample was given a C-14 age of 405+/-60 years BP, with a 95% probability for a calibrated age of A.D. 1410-1640, a time substantially later than that proposed for the abandonment of the cliff dwellings.