Dorens Defeat Castle?

[Alston_Neal]

Ever since I read The Archaeology of Perry Mesa and its World by David Wilcox, my wife and I have been intrigued by this site. We have gone bushwhacking in this area which is east of Fossil Creek Rd. coming down from the 260. It is also across the road from the TH to Towel Creek. We have found Doren Defeat Spring, shards and scrappers but no site, which it appears to be comparable in size to others in the Verde Valley and listed as NA 3605. I've web searched, gone thru old books to no avail.
My search here gave me this.......
[text removed] ...by joe bartels

Sooo I know at least Joe knows...

[hikeaz]

Have you perused "The little-known small house ruins in the Coconino Forest" by Colton?

[Alston_Neal]

No I haven't, nor have I heard of it, sounds interesting.
But since my gallery is a couple of doors from Guidon Books, which btw has quite a few AZ. based books, I'll head over.

[hikeaz]

No guarantees, as I do not have the book. But it just might have a lead for ya. If not, I'm sure you'll come away with a shopping list for future explorations.

[Alston_Neal]

Well I haven't located the book yet. Soooooo
Joe, where is this Dorens Defeat trail you know of?

[tompallas]

Joe, Doren's Defeat Castle is at 34 27 078- 111 40 785.

T

[Alston_Neal]

Wow, shortly after my last post I did a GE calculation to where I thought was the most likely location.
I wasn't far off, but haven't been able to get into the area lately.
Thanks tompallas.... ;)

[big_load]

Hmmm, yet another place to explore.

[Alston_Neal]

Yeah the Fossill Creek road closing has really limited us from going back there. Also we want it cool, cuz it can be snakey.
The GPS shows me 700 yards off from my calculation. So should be interesting to check out.

[Alston_Neal]

Yesterday being a national holiday (my birthday) we closed the biz and headed north.
We finally found it.......it was a great day...
Photoset to follow.

[Nighthiker]

The site is noted for several different ceramics type from the same time period in one location, possible ball court and enough material remains noted to indicate several cultural tradations or a blendin/ Some of the rock walls may have been rebuilt during historic times after the original folks vanished from the scene.

[Alston_Neal]

I look at this Middle Verde area to be similar to Perry Mesa. Large late pueblos, not really true Sinagua or Hohokam in the case of Perry Mesa.
Some have noted that these two groups may have worked together. Raiding the Hohokam and also the theory that the Perry Mesa group couldn't produce enough food to subsist on. So the Middle Verde group produced more than enough food to trade with the PM group.