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Archaeological dig uncovers a Prescott Culture home that is more than 1,000 years old. |
THERE ARE TIMES
Some call that serendipity. I just say it's what makes life interesting.
In any event, it's what happened not long ago when I set out in search of birds
The bird-finding had been hot there and a friend and I sighted hawks galore, including kestrels, a Cooper's hawk, a lone northern harrier and a zone-tailed hawk--an Arizona rarity.
Two days later we drove
Right off, we re-found the visiting white pelican, showing up as a large white glob
After an hour, I set out
What I found was an archaeological dig--three digs, actually. From large explanatory panels I learned that these digs were the remains of what had once been home to a community known now as the Prescott Culture.
Prehistoric village
For some 300 years, beginning in A.D. 850, an advanced culture lived in this area, farming the soils along Willow Creek and hunting both small game in the surrounding valley and larger species in nearby mountains to the south and west.
Several years ago archaeologists conducted an extensive excavation at the site, learning much more about these people, who drifted away, possibly to be absorbed into other groups in this part of Arizona in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Apparently no one knows just how many people once lived in the prehistoric village whose remains I now studied, but it must have been fairly extensive for that time since there is solid evidence of about 20 structures in two separate locations on this one streamside hill.
Artifacts from the dig have been removed, of course. What remains on view at the site are three sizable excavations. These were the sites of structures, including at least one large residence built with poles and beams, covered with reed grasses and weatherproofed with a mud plaster.
Other buildings at the site were used for storage and one was a mortuary.
Many artifacts have been recovered, including sea shells traced to what is now called the Gulf of California or Sea of Cortez, in Mexico. These and other items prove the Prescott Culture peoples actively traded with other tribes over a broad area. Bones of the scarlet macaw, a South American jungle bird with brilliant plumage, have also been recovered here, adding to the indications of trade carried out over long distances.
There are a series of small holes around the perimeter of the pits where structural poles were placed. Archaeologists have found that all buildings in this community faced in the same direction--generally east or east-northeast, and this alignment is believed to have something to do with the spring and fall equinoxes.
(I am certainly no archaeologist, yet had to wonder if the openings of the entrances were not simply faced away from prevailing winds, weather and dust storms.)
Sounds of the wild
I was alone, revisiting the dig, and as I made notes my mind drifted back over the centuries to imagine what life must have been like for these people. Their fires burned, their children played, their crops were gathered in my imaginings. This moment of reverie even had its own sounds, wolves howling and coyotes yelping.
And just as in our nighttime dreams when we awaken to a co-existing reality, the howls and yelps of those creatures of the wild suddenly stayed with me as I came back to the present.
It was startling. This was now. I glanced at my watch and it was 9:28 a.m. on Nov. 7, 2007, and still the song of the wild was there.
I spun around. I was alone. I could see traffic on Willow Creek Road, yet the animals called and the wild stayed with me.
And then it struck me: I stood in Heritage Park. The Heritage Park Zoo was half
In another moment it was over; quiet returned, and
