ROADS AND RUINS

ROADS AND RUINS A DELICATE BALANCE

The road through Petrified Forest National Park reveals a striking panorama of color and form. Dry tablelands where no spring flows. The bluegray haze of lunar landscapes. Sand-burnished peaks and sheer walled gullies beneath a relentless sun. A painted vista telling time's own story. Mountain and mesa. Clay upon sandstone. Past against present.

But for the near-million visitors who enter the park each year, the road is much more than a mere highway across some of the world's most remarkable terrain. Connecting the north and south entrances, this asphalt artery serves as a link between current curiosity and ancient mysteries. In its brief twenty-eight-mile stretch, the visitor can tap into the history of 200 million years. In the two hours and twenty minutes or so that it takes to drive gate to gate, one can scan the passage of geological eons.

Without the road, the vast majority of us would have little opportunity to enjoy the park's continuing magnificence. Or, as Superintendent Ed Gastellum puts it, “The road itself is the crucial key to the entire park experience.” As such, the road carries much of the responsibility for maintaining that critical balance between progress and preservation. On the one hand, it must provide for safe and convenient access to an impressive natural wonder. At the same time, its very construction means violence to the fragile environment and the obliteration of thousands of years of prehistory. What the pavement covers over will never be retrieved. What the pathway cuts through can be pulverized forever.

It is just such a dilemma that park officials face today. To accommodate the ever-increasing traffic flow, the road is undergoing a four-phase reconstruction to repair, widen, and resurface the route. The project is badly needed. Built in the 1930s, the road has shouldered a growing burden of abuse. As the park's fame has grown, so too have the numbers of vehicles that daily traverse the preserve's myriad attractions. Over the years, the road has become pitted with potholes and patchy surfacing-unkind to car suspensions, almost impossible to drain in bad weather. But how does one remedy the situation without disturbing secrets the earth has yet to unfold? What steps can be taken to protect the past that lies buried under layers of desert sand?

The answer, in part, is “archeological mitigation.” And that's where Anne Trinkle Jones comes in. A staff archeologist with the National Park Service's Western Archaeological and Conservation Center in Tucson, Jones is field director of an archeological team whose task is to survey, map, and collect data from proposed mainline road reconstruction areas.

Remnants of ancient man lie scattered across the grasslands of Petrified Forest National Park. Once a fertile home for hunting and gathering and early farming cultures, the region underwent climatic changes that drove these early settlers to more hospitable lands. (RIGHT) Walnut black on white polychrome urn from AD. 1075 to 1250, found near Billings, Arizona, on the Puerco River, east of the park. (BELOW) An etched work stone of undetermined use; stone beads possibly from a necklace; projectile points; a bird fetish carved in mudstone; and a centerdrilled stone possibly used as jewelry. JEFF KIDA

"pretty much disturbed the area it cut through," says Jones. "But we are hoping to mitigate the impact of this new road construction. We can work to get whatever information is left from the time of the original construction and now, even if a site is destroyed completely, we will have retrieved as much evidence as we could."

By defining prehistoric site boundaries, mapping site loci (locations), and collecting surface artifacts, archeologists can begin to preserve data vital to the understanding of early cultures. Archeological mitigation of this sort can reveal intriguing information about ancient peoples and patterns. When did they change from being hunters and gatherers to farmers, for instance? How did environmental factors such as long droughts affect their settlement patterns? What were the relationships among major cultural areas and their different traditions? Where and with whom did prehistoric peoples trade?

For Trinkle Jones, the work is a complex puzzle into which pieces, little by little, fall into place: "A good sample of artifacts can tell us who was here, where, and what they were doing. From there we know where to go."

Archeologists also may recommend changes in proposed construction plans. Where an important site will be disturbed, drainage easements may be altered or gutters redesigned. Pullouts for visitors may be relocated to avoid site destruction or road shoulders banked to discourage offroad traffic. Moreover, during actual construction an archeologist is typically on hand to monitor the work.

The importance of mitigation is underscored by the park's value as an archeological gold mine. To date, more than 300 sites have been recorded in the southern half of the park alone. The story of human habitation appears to go back some 2000 years. Each new site survey expands and enhances a rapidly deepening pool of knowledge concerning these pueblo peoples.

And the results are exciting. To mitigate the impact of the first phase of reconstruction, for example, about a six-mile stretch south of the Blue Mesa Spur Road, Jones's team conducted data recovery during August, 1983. Their survey uncovered four separate loci, two dated to the Basket Maker III period (AD. 500-800), and two tentatively dated to the Pueblo II and Early Puebly III periods (AD. 900 to 1150). The same care is being taken with each phase of the reconstruction. Already the second and third phases of the fifteenmillion-dollar project are finished. By For mid-1987, the fourth phase should be completed. The cumulative archeological findings could be significant.

For the park visitor, the new road will mean easier access and safer driving. Along the reconstructed route will be interpretive exhibits calculated to "tease the imagination," according to Gastellum. These should encourage even the visitor in a hurry to stop, look, and savor an incredible history; to experience and comprehend firsthand a geological marvel in the making.

For the archeologists, however, the new road is just the beginning. Long after the improved surface has begun to speed motorists along, the scientists will still be examining, cataloging, and analyzing their site collections for new insights into an emerging past. For them, the roadside discoveries are only the initial step in an unceasing quest for understanding, clues to places and peoples, homes and hearths. Small sites will be placed in the perspective of larger ones such as Puerco Ruin. Eventually these findings, too, will be displayed, available for every visitor to see and delight in, for the imaginative to ponder. To realize that we walk today where dinosaurs once walked. To wonder that we now stand where once some pueblo artisan, viewing the colored horizon, recorded his impressions in ceramic and stone. Our pathway into a primitive past, the road through Petrified Forest National Park leads us on a journey beyond ourselves, beyond the shadowy perimeters of human history.

Of sophistication: its patterns and shadings can pinpoint a culture. A shaped petrified wood chip is a hint that even in ancient times the park's natural resources were recognized and appreciated. Jones speculates that the petrified wood was traded for pottery, shells, beads. Workable, hard, and lovely to behold, the trees of stone must have been an enormous asset to the Petrified Forest's inhabitants. Of course, archeological pickings can be meager. Test sites over a widespread radius may yield little more than a handful of evidence. A few charcoal flecks. A broken sherd. From pounds of sifted earth there may be only a few ounces of material. The work is detailed, time-consuming-and necessary.

"The original road built in the 1930s

WHEN YOU GO...

Petrified Forest National Park, on Interstate Route 40 east of Holbrook, Arizona, is open year-round during daylight hours, as are the Painted Desert Visitor Center and the Rainbow Forest Museum. After hours, the park is closed and locked.