POLLEN ANALYSIS AT THE HOUGHTON ROAD SITE, (AZ BB:13:398), ARIZONA

The Houghton Road Site is located within the city limits of Tucson, Arizona
immediately west of Houghton Road between Tanque Verde Road and Speedway
Boulevard. It is situated on the flood plain at the convergence of the Tanque
Verde and Agua Caliente washes. This Hohokam site has been archaeomagnetically
dated to AD 400 to 600. Although it is a typical Hohokam site, some Mogollonlike
architectural components are noted. This site includes large deep square
houses, cremations and inhumations, dog burials, Archaic lithics, large San Pedro
points, and a variety of other artifactual remains. Stratigraphic pollen samples
were examined from the fill of Feature 18, a large deep pithouse that contained
charred corn kernels in one floor feature. Pollen samples were also collected
and examined from plastered extramural surfaces, the rooffall of a plastered
rectangular pithouse, from a shallow pit, a burial, and a roasting pit, and from
the wash of a piece of groundstone. Examination of pollen at this site was
directed towards recovery of subsistence data, including not only what plants
were processed, but where these plants were processed within the site.