The Roosevelt Community Development Study, Number 13, Volume 1: Introduction and Small Sites

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 study involved 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. 13 consists of two report volumes that present project background and provide descriptive information on the excavation and testing of sites in the project area. These reports include site and feature descriptions, site and feature maps, general artifact data, and preliminary interpretations of the individual sites.
Volume 1: Introduction and Small Sites (Anthroplogical Papers No. 13) presents project background and provides descriptive information on the excavation and testing of the small sites in the project area. Volume 2 describes work at the larger sites of Meddler Point, Griffin Wash, and Pyramid Point.

Sites within the project area exhibited a great range of functional, temporal, and likely cultural diversity. These include two sites with platform mounds (the Meddler Point and Pyramid Point sites), a 100-room masonry pueblo (the Griffin Wash site), smaller masonry compounds (e.g., the Porcupine site), and pithouse hamlets and farmsteads (e.g., the Hedge Apple and Eagle Ridge sites). Temporal components ranged from the Early Ceramic Horizon (A.D. 100-600) at Locus B of the Eagle Ridge site through the Roosevelt phase (A.D. 1250-1350) of the Classic period. The Early Ceramic component of the Eagle Ridge site is now the earliest documented ceramic period site in the Tonto Basin, and it provides definitive evidence for an indigenous pre-Hohokam population. The project area was the most intensively inhabited during the Roosevelt phase, when platform mounds, large pueblos, and small masonry compounds were occupied. It was largely abandoned by A.D. 1325, prior to the large-scale aggregation that occurred during the Gila phase; very few Gila Polychrome sherds were recovered from project area sites.