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| Hiking | 7.10 Miles |
790 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.10 Miles | 4 Hrs 3 Mns | | 1.85 mph |
| 790 ft AEG | 13 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | I haven't taken the long drive to Safford to look for ancient stuff before, but I knew there were interesting things out that way. Pretty much everywhere near the Gila River had people.
The place I decided to go to today is apparently the "type-site" for the area, meaning that it's study (through excavation) provided all the important information for understanding the local ancient culture. In my limited experience, excavated/reburied sites don't show you much and most interesting stuff has been collected for study by the experts. Still I thought it'd be worth having a look.
Interesting puzzle wending through small dirt roads, driveways, and private property signs until I finally hit a closed gate/no trespassing sign a couple miles short of my planned start. Oh well, my plan to look past the target mesa top to other higher ones went out the window and I'd have to spend my time just getting to the type-site.
The area is overgrown, with washes separated by low ridges and I was lucky to notice some pottery pieces which led me to walk along a low ridge which had mucho pottery all the way. No obvious habitation signs (i.e. walls/rock alignments) but clearly this was inhabited, probably by people in pit-houses which leave little trace.
Eventually I got to the base of my target mesa and started to notice a lot of "rock lines" which I'm pretty sure were check-dams to support crops growing just below the habitation area. One thing I know from the little reading I've done about the Safford area is that there are extensive rock alignments built for agriculture. Some large area patterns can be seen in satellite pictures.
The mesa top was a little better than I expected. I could see the outlines of small rooms all around the edge of the mesa top with a larger structure (it's edge anyway) in the middle. Not many other artifacts up there though. But the immediate surroundings stood out: the extensive series of check-dams on the north side and a nice flat gathering/agriculture area on the back side make this an impressive place.
I could see a jeep road (washed out in places) coming in at the back side and I walked that back. |
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