Cultural Resources Survey for the GECO-PRAKLA Seismic Project Chaves County, New Mexico

The following report summarizes the results of a Class III cultural resources inventory for seismic test lines in Chaves County, New Mexico. The proposed undertaking is on Bureau of Land Management property and State of New Mexico property. Sixteen complete and partial sections are overlain by an intersecting grid of survey lines which totaled 65 linear miles.
Cultural resources encountered during survey included twenty-five newly recorded sites, two previously recorded sites, and 89 isolated occurrences. The twenty-seven sites include fifteen small lithic camp sites; ten Jornada Mogollon camp sites; one multi-component Archaic, Jornada Mogollon camp site; and one large, multi-component Jornada Mogollon habitation site. Reroutes were surveyed for all sites regardless of site category and eligibility recommendations. Reroutes for twenty-ix of the twenty-seven sites were marked with flagging in the field. The remaining site, NM 06-3787, was fenced previously which should protect the site during the present undertaking. Twenty of the twenty-five newly recorded sites were recorded as Bureau of Land Management Category 2 sites, eighteen of which are considered to be significant cultural resources eligible to the National Register of Historic Places under 36 CFR 60.4, Criterion D of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Both previously recorded resources are also recommended as eligible. These sites are likely to yield information important to prehistory. The remaining five sites were defined as Category 1 sites which are by definition, ineligible for protection. The information potential of the isolated occurrences was exhausted during survey.