Archaeological Investigations of Cultural Resources Located in the Havasu Pumping Plant Borrow Area, Central Arizona Project

Under contract with the Bureau of Reclamation, the Office of Cultural Resource Management (OCRM), Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, completed an archaeological survey of the Havasu Pumping Plant borrow area of the Granite Reef Aqueduct. The Havasu Pumping Plant borrow area is about three miles east of the pumping plant site. The Havasu Pumping Plant lifts water from the Bill Williams arm of Lake Havasu to the Buckskin Mountains Tunnel.
OCRM archaeologists identified and documented one site during the Havasu Pumping Plant borrow area survey: AZ L:12:1 (ASU). Mitigation was completed at the site in the spring of 1978. A stratified sample surface collection and testing of two rock features was completed at AZ L:12:1 (ASU).
The investigations identified a pattern of secondary resource zone exploitation in the desert areas between the river valleys. Researchers defined and described a secondary resource zone as an area which did not support a permanent population, but was utilized intermittently, probably on a seasonal basis, in the exploitation of wild plant and animal food resources by people whose primary subsistence was derived from a different zone.