Archeological Data Recovery at the Rim of the Grand Canyon, Shoshone Point Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Archeologists from the Western archeological and Conservation Center completed archeological data recovery in June and July 2005 in advance of the construction of a vault toilet in the multicomponent site, AZ B:16:680. The proposed toilet will be installed near a thermal feature,
Feature 6, and will adversely affect or destroy the information likely to be yielded from its subsurface deposits. With Arizona SHPO concurrence, the park’s cultural resources personnel developed a research design to complete a 100-percent surface collection and instrument map of the entire site, and data recovery in the footprint of the proposed toilet and in Feature 6. Nineteen STUs and 6 formal XUs were opened within the APE. Approximately 3,200 artifacts were retrieved from the surface or recovered from the subsurface of the site; a little more than one-quarter of these artifacts were analyzed in the laboratory at WACC.

From the analysis of all the data, a complete site map was created from precise instrumentation. The new site map accurately depicts the site’s topographic relief and artifact distribution. This map provides the park with real data to formulate future management recommendations and plans for
this site as needed. The data collected from the analysis of the artifacts suggest that Feature 6 is a thermal feature, but not a roasting pit. The excavations show that construction of the vault toilet will not negatively impact any significant artifacts or subsurface deposits. No further archeological work is recommended for this site in mitigation of the construction of the proposed vault toilet.