Research Design for the Roosevelt Community Development Study

The Roosevelt Community Development Study (RCD) was one of three data recovery mitigative studies that the Bureau of Reclamation funded to investigate the prehistory of the Tonto Basin in the vicinity of Theodore Roosevelt Dam. The series of investigations constituted Reclamation's program for complying with historic preservation legislation as it applied to the raising and modification of Theodore Roosevelt Dam. Reclamation contracted with Desert Archaeology, Inc. to complete the research for this investigation.

The RCD was scheduled for completion in a four-year time frame (and full, three-part mitigation program was scheduled for eight years). The project involved the involved the testing and excavation of 27 sites in a four-mile continuous area along the north bank of the Salt River, in the lower Tonto Basin of central Arizona. The Center for Desert Archaeology's Anthropological Papers No. 12, Research Design for the Roosevelt Community Development Study, outlines the research issues that guided Desert Archaeology's Roosevelt Community Development Study. It also considers how goals were to be refined as the results of ongoing fieldwork become available.