EMAP Phelps - LA 37691 Unit 10, 1993

During the 1993 summer field season excavation was undertaken and continued in the Palomas Drainage of the foothills of the Black Range by students and staff of the Eastern Mimbres Archaeological Project (EMAP) under the auspices of Dr. Michelle Hegmon (New Mexico State University) and Dr. Margaret Nelson (University of New York at Buffalo). The sites excavated were located on the Ladder Ranch in Central/Western New Mexico. This report addresses the excavation of one room (Unit 10) at the Phelps site. The Phelps site is located on a small mesa overlooking the south fork of the Palomas Creek and has a long view, westward toward the Black Range, of the valley created by that creek. The Phelps site was surveyed by Shingle and Gilman in 1982. The survey estimated the site contained two room blocks and associated artifactual and architectural evidence of prehistoric occupancy. Excavations in 1983 conducted by Dr. Margaret Nelson (University of New Mexico) used ceramic evidence and archaeomagnetic dating from a Unit 10 hearth to establish occupancy as early as A.D. 1000 and possibly continuing through the A.D. 1300's.