The Avocational Archeologist

The Rise of the Avocational Archeologist

Joan Clark crouches low and chats sporadically between periods of concentration while scraping the hard-packed dirt floor of a thousand-year-old Hohokam pit house.

“It can get tedious,” she says to a visitor as dust rises from the earth beneath her, “but there’s always that feeling of suspense that goes with working on a dig. You never know what your trowel is going to turn up next.” What Clark is hoping to uncover on this sunny day in the desert is a storage area beneath the floor, a small pit where the prehistoric dwellers would have kept vessels of various sorts as well as foodstuffs.

Clark is president of the Desert Foothills chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society, an 800-member nonprofessional group of volunteers. The chapter has turned out this particular weekend to help excavate a site at Pinnacle Peak Village in north Scottsdale where the remains of upwards of 20 prehistoric Hohokam houses were unearthed by backhoe. The most important part of the site a triangle-shaped third of an acre containing most of those houses-will be preserved, according to officials of the Pinnacle Peak Land Company. The company is expected to build modern-day houses nearby.

“Just think,” says Jo Anne Miller, laboratory director for the excavation, “in 300 years the houses now being built will have disappeared, and some archeologist digging on the site will report that while excavating a residential area near Phoenix, he came upon something much older and more important underneath.” Thousands of visitors have already observed this Hohokam village excavation during a series of public education tours. Members of the society and Arizona State University’s anthropology department acted as guides, explaining excavation techniques and pointing out some of the rare discoveries.

To flesh out the picture of what Hohokam life may have been like in the area, the group produced displays of pottery and food and explained the use of cooking pits and metates, stones on which the ancient peoples ground grains, especially maize.

Each cooking pit, visitors learned, is an important discovery because the baked clay along its outer rim can reveal through archeomagnetic dating the age of the hearth and consequently the period when the village was inhabited.

It’s possible this particular site might never have been investigated in time had it not been for the help of volunteers. Patricia Gilman, ASU staff archeologist and supervisor of the project at the time of the dig last spring, comments that about 40 “avocational archeologists” spent 42 full days at work on the dig. “They have a lot of training and they love to use it,” she says. “They do it for their own satisfaction.” Volunteers from the state’s growing number of avocational archeologists may spend hours, days, or weeks at an excavation, whisking away ages of accumulated debris from relics of the distant past. The work is hard on the hands, elbows, and knees. But, says Ben Mixon, it does something for the soul. “It’s difficult to describe,” declares Mixon, a58-year-old veteran of more than 20 years of effort at dig sites around Arizona. “But sometimes when you’re down on your knees scraping away, you feel like the prehistoric occupants are right there with you. It’s also amazing and sobering to realize that I may be the first to touch something since it was held by another person much like me a thousand or two thousand years ago. “We learn so much about others and ourselves through archeology,” he continues. “Ancient peoples made many of today’s advances and amenities possible. They did the homework for things we take for granted.”

Mixon, a tool and die maker, finds himself particularly fascinated with ancient tools. Such artifacts, he believes, “help us to develop an understanding about what people could do and accomplish in a society.” A member of the Southwest Archaeological Team (SWAT), Mixon points out that a host of tools used in the distant past are remarkable for their ingenuity. For example, stone axheads discovered at Hohokam sites were heat-treated for durability, just as most tools are tempered today for the same reason.

Those prehistoric people also created a leveling device-complete with a plumb bob-to determine the angle of a slope, or grade, when planning their canal systems. A similar device does the same job for surveyors today.

The Hohokam canal systems were especially impressive. In December of 1867, Jack Swilling and others reclaimed sections of ancient canals in the Salt River Valley to create an irrigation system that allowed Phoenix to blossom as a fertile community. Several parts of today’s network of concrete-lined canals follow the same gradients as those of the Hohokam channels of long ago.

The 65 members of SWAT throughout the state specialize in salvage archeology, rescuing from construction projects artifacts, remnants of structures, and other bits and pieces of anthropological information that otherwise would have been lost beneath roads, dams, and large buildings.

Charles Gilbert is a long-time member of the Arizona Archaeological Society, which he says has doubled its membership in the last 10 years. Like other

Avocational Archeologist

(OPPOSITE PAGE) Volunteer archeologists begin the long-term program of stabilizing the Elden Pueblo site. (LEFT) Joan Clark, president of the Desert Foothills chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society, brushes the floor of a thousandyear-old Hohokam pit house at the Pinnacle Peak dig.

(BELOW) The Pinnacle Peak excavation yielded Hobokam arrowheads and an ancient ceramic scoop with linear design.

For volunteer organizations involved in archeological work, the group provides its members an average of 10 study courses, including note-taking, surveying, laying out of field sites, excavation, and the history of early civilizations.

Another group that has grown rapidly and whose members for the most part are avocationalists is the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, which was organized under the auspices of the Arizona State Museum in Tucson. It has a roster of 700 members.

Says William D. Hohmann, immediate past president: “We offer an alternative

Avocational Archeologist

(RIGHT AND BELOW) A grooved axhead, miniature widemouthed jar, and bird effigy censer made of vesicular basalt were among artifacts found during the Pinnacle Peak project. (OPPOSITE PAGE) Excavating and rebuilding Elden Pueblo provided a hands-on educational project for the volunteers who undertook the arduous tasks of measuring, labeling, and sifting through the layers of earth and debris that had covered the site for centuries.

To 'independent investigation' "to use a charitable term for modern-day grave robbing or pot hunting.

"Fortunately, in Arizona," he adds, "there's a growing sense of propriety about leaving sites alone. But that's not true in all parts of the country."

There also are some very stiff antiquities laws on Arizona's books to dissuade thieves from stealing Indian artifacts.

Salvage archeology's growth and present importance can be traced to the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. It requires agencies to determine whether historical sites may exist beneath or near federally funded construction work or near projects proposed on federal lands.

The process, called mitigation, calls for surveying, excavating, and mapping the areas affected and cataloging the resulting information and artifacts. Only when these tasks are accomplished can construction begin at a site.

"Excavation of this kind is an expensive proposition," Gilbert says. "If the agencies can get avocationalists for free, it's good for them and good for us."

There was a time not long ago when the union between professional archeologists and volunteers was not so strong. "For a long while, we were looked upon with suspicion," recalls Gilbert. "Did we really know enough?" But as volun-teers trained themselves and learned more and more through their archeological organizations, professionals increasingly gained respect for them. Today, the ranks of volunteers are filled with medical doctors, grocery clerks, lawyers, architects, businessmen, housewives, journalists, factory workers, students, and retirees, all donating their time, from a weekend now and again to as much as several hundred hours a year. With the success of volunteerism in aiding professional archeologists with their tasks, other bodies whose supply of funds usually do not stretch enough to hire the services of others began seeking volunteer participation. One such is the Site Steward Program of the Arizona Archaeological Advisory Commission.

Since the program's official inception in 1988, at least a hundred volunteers have been trained to watch over public lands.

Explains Teresa Hoffman, archeologist for the State Historic Preservation Office, which cosponsors the project: "It's a complex program. Its purpose is to determine the condition of archeological sites around the state and to monitor them on a regular basis to prevent vandalism, as well as to report damage so that reclamation can be scheduled." "The past is worth preserving," insists Mixon. "When we look into it, enjoy it, take care of it, it helps us understand ourselves a little bit better."

Editor's note: Arizona Archaeology Week will be observed next month, March 24 to 30, with the theme "Time Travel Arizona!" For information on events during the week, call Teresa Hoffman at the State Historic Preservation Office, (602) 542-4009.