Navajo Administrative History

The initial generation of archeologists were not well equipped to unravel the mysteries of the past. They brought the assumptions and techniques of their era to a world that functioned by a different set of rules in both past and present. Influenced strongly by Morgan and other late nineteenth-century thinkers, they saw through an ethnocentric prism that limited their ability to understand the methods and motives of prehistoric people. Most had little academic training in their chosen field, but acquired their knowledge while doing fieldwork. Nor were the techniques of their time particularly sophisticated. Faced with thousands of ruins, this initial generation acted as had Bandelier more than three decades before. They described what they saw, drew maps of ruins and rooms, and provided essential basic information. But few did more than take field notes, and little of such work was published in a timely fashion for the use of other scholars. Field techniques and procedures were not yet standardized. A largely incomplete set of data resulted. While many excavations occurred on the Colorado plateau, little consensus about the patterns of prehistoric life followed.

The condition of surface ruins after an excavation was incidental to the progress of archeology in this era. More concerned with the artifacts they found and their broad generalizations about the prehistoric past, most of the first generation of archeologists used ruins for their own purposes. Like the pot-hunters they feared, they too tore through ruins, digging hastily and capriciously. There was little thought or care to the long-term survival of the ruins they excavated.

During the initial era of inquiry, which lasted well into the 1930s, archeologists explored northeastern Arizona. They mapped some of the ruins in the region, performing preliminary excavations and beginning the long and complex process of assembling data. As occurred elsewhere in the world, the initial generation to explore the region faced the problems of being first. Limited by the techniques of their time, little funding, lack of prior knowledge and context in which to locate their discoveries, and their cultural outlook, many found little information but used it to speculate wildly and generalize broadly. [9]

By the end of the 1910s, a new style of archeological practice was coming to the fore. Initiated by Nels V. Nelson and Alfred V. Kidder, archeologists began to adapt the stratigraphic techniques of nineteenth-century archeologist Max Uhle to the American Southwest. At Galisteo, Nelson began the process; Kidder's recognition of changes in architecture, ceramics, and skeletal attributes at Pecos led to the first major chronological sequences of pueblo prehistory. Archeology was moving past description as an end at precisely the moment that the monument and its environment was first subjected to rigorous excavation.

The Colorado Plateau became a center for early excavation efforts in the years following 1909. John Wetherill served as a guide for a multitude of explorers in the region. Between 1914 and 1927, Kayenta became the center of a frequently explored area. The Peabody Museum's Northeastern Arizona Expedition became the dominant group as it sponsored study of the many facets of the region and established a pattern that would become ingrained in southwestern archeology. The broad-based focus inspired more widespread expeditions headed by Kidder, Samuel J. Guernsey, and Noel Morss that examined numerous locations in the area, including the west side of Monument Valley, sections of the Chinle Wash, and Tsegi drainage system. [10]

According to later archeologists, Kidder and Guernsey's work initiated serious modern archeology in the region. Sponsored by the Peabody Museum, the 1914 and 1915 expeditions they headed were the first to report on the findings in a systematic and timely fashion. Kidder and Guernsey's work demonstrated stratigraphic and material culture differences between "basket-maker" and cliff houses materials, and allowed them to postulate the existence of a phase of culture located chronologically between the two. [11]

Food or corn grinding place in Betatakin Ruins. Photo by Luke E. Smith, 1921.

With a chronology posited, Kidder and Guernsey explored further. If the different temporal phases existed, archeologists thought they could describe and detail the differences. The Peabody Museum backed expeditions in 1916 and 1917, out of which came Guernsey and Kidder's Basket Maker Caves of Northeastern Arizona, published in 1921. In the 1990s, this work remained a major reference on Basketmaker II material culture. Further work between 1920 and 1923 added architectural detail and broadened the quantity of artifacts that substantiated the new generalizations. [12]

During the 1920s, a range of institutions and individuals sent expeditions to northeastern Arizona. Many archeologists learned their trade in the area, and a kind of mini-boom in interest resulted. But only a few of the expeditions pursued the advancement of knowledge. Many others sought to make collections for museum cases or personal edification. Charles L. Bernheimer sponsored an expedition nearly every year in the 1920s, as did the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee. These collecting forays did little to advance the state of knowledge about prehistory in the region. Other work resulted in advancement of the chronological sequences that Kidder and Guernsey pioneered. Harold S. Gladwin, Arthur Woodward and Irwin Hayden, and Monroe Amsden conducted excavations that yielded much new contextual information that helped unravel the story of Navajo National Monument.

A major advancement in the ability to discern prehistoric information occurred in this era, shaking up the present and laying a basis for the future. Astronomer Arthur E. Douglas of the University of Arizona had long studied southwestern tree-ring growth to aid his sun spot research. By the late 1920s, he had surveyed both living trees and prehistoric timbers preserved in ruins. In 1929, he had two long chronological sequences, one dating from the twentieth century back into the late prehistoric period, about 1,300 C.E., the other a floating chronology not linked in time to the first. That summer, Emil W. Haury, a young archeologist, discovered a piece of charred wood that established the basis for a link between the two timelines. In one brief moment, chronological dating of prehistoric sites became empirical. This set the stage for a major revolution in the way archeologists perceived the past as well as in their ability to base chronology on much more than educated speculation. [13]

Betatakin Ruins (hillside house), near Kayenta, Arizona, May 1921. Photo by Luke E. Smith.

Dendrochronology, the science of tree-ring dating, and stratigraphic cultural sequencing laid the basis for a revolution in the way in which archeologists collected and understood information about the past. A new era in the archeology of the region followed, characterized by greater systematization and classification, and more emphasis on the construction of prehistoric chronologies and regional culture history. [14] Unfortunately, the collapse of the financial markets in 1929 limited the ability of many potential patrons to support an expedition. Despite new knowledge and methods, archeologists had to wait to apply them.

The Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley survey, a traveling expedition that spent every summer from 1933 to 1938 in northeastern Arizona and southeastern Utah, provided the mechanism that became the next attempt at comprehensive study of the region. Conceived and headed by Ansel F. Hall of the Park Service and shaped by his interests, the expedition made field collections, selective archeological studies and excavations, and mapped the physiographic and geologic features of the area. An array of scientists from different fields participated, including archeologists, paleontologists, biologists, and geologists. They excavated in an immense area that stretched from Marsh Pass well across the Utah border on the Rainbow Plateau.

The Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley expeditions added to the large stores of data collected in the vicinity of the monument. Field parties combed the region, surveying and excavating in a number of places. As many as seventy people participated from base camps located first in Kayenta and later in Marsh Pass. Lyndon Hargrave of the Museum of Northern Arizona supervised archeological work the first two years, and was succeeded by Charles D. Winning of New York University. Working at a range of sites, participants in the expedition uncovered much information that helped explain the story of the Kayenta Anasazi. These efforts paved the way for the first systematic inventory of archeological resources in the Tsegi Canyon system.

The discoveries of the Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley expeditions also helped add to the advance of archeological knowledge in the region. With the methods to date and order the prehistoric past, archeologists could use data to systematically categorize the past. Accurate chronological sequencing was developed, and the addition of information from the surveys gave a broad-based picture of the level of technology, the nature of trade, and many other aspects of prehistoric life.

Betatakin Ruins, May 1921. Photo by Luke E. Smith.