A Design for Salado Research

The Roosevelt Platform Mound Study (RPMS) was one of three mitigative data recovery 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 the Arizona State University Office of Cultural Resource Management (OCRM) to complete the research for this investigation.

The RPMS was an eight year archaeological research project that began in April 1989. It focused on sites of the Salado period, especially on platform mounds and the residential compounds clustered around the mounds. The study examined sites within four archaeological site complexes: the Pinto Creek Complex, the Rock Island Complex, the Uplands Complex, and the Cline Terrace Complex. The Pinto Creek complex was further subdivided into management groups: the Livingston Management Group and the Schoolhouse Management Group.

This volume is the research design for the Roosevelt Platform Mound Study. It describes the models, methods, techniques and strategies that guided implementation of the study, and conveys the enthusiasm with which the project staff approached the research.