SADDLE MOUNTAIN PUEBLO

Stephen E. Nash

21 June 1999
Saddle Mountain Pueblo is a small nine-room pueblo at an elevation of approximately 7500 feet (Figure 1).


Figure 1: Map showing the location of Saddle Mountain Pueblo

EXCAVATION STRATEGY

Four of nine rooms were excavated. The outlines of unexcavated rest rooms were determined on the basis of standing walls (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Negative number 95534. General view of the Saddle Mountain Site

Excavation Records

Department of Anthropology Archives Southwest Expedition Box SW 9 (Southwest Expedition 1955: Foote Canyon, Saddle Mountain, Perry Lawson, Delgar Site: Photos with Explanation) contains excavation records and sheets and photographs of Saddle Mountain Pueblo.

Accession Files

Accession File 2535 in the Department of Anthropology at the Field Museum states the following with regard to the 1955 Expedition to the Southwest:

"Archaeological material from
Foote Canyon
Perry Lawson Site
Saddle Mountain Site
Delgar Site
Powerline Site

133 stone, bone, shell, and baked clay artifacts
22 restorable pottery vessels
6 intact pottery vessels
161 flake knives, scrapers, and choppers (of these approx. 1/3 catalogued and
illustrated in report - 53?)
2 fragmentary human skeletons
540 stone, bone, shell, and clay artifacts (not counting pottery vessels) were
excavated. Over 200 of these, including 185 manos, were left in the field.


Photograph Files

Department of Anthropology Photo Archives Volume 35X contains the following photographs:

Negative No. 95532, 95533, 95534: Saddle Mountain Site general view.

Negative No. 95502: Saddle Mountain Site, general view. Taken near the
Southeast corner of the ruin, looking north. This is the outside wall of the
ruin, standing nearly a meter in height.

Negative No 95504: Saddle Mountain Site, Room 1. Taken from outside of Room
1, at the northwest corner of the ruin, looking south, to show the height of
standing ruin.

Negative No. 95503: Room 1. Plaster on the south wall.

Negative No. 95528: Room 2. Vent between this room and Room 3.

Negative No. 95530: Room 2 Firepit

Negative No. 95529: Room 3, Doorway into Room 4.

NATURE AND INTEGRITY OF THE COLLECTION

The Field Museum curates one ax, fourteen pieces of charcoal, 11 faunal remains, one hammerstone, and 241 sherds. Though Rinaldo states that four rooms were excavated, only three are represented in the subsite provenience information associated with the artifacts. It is certainly possible that no artifacts were recovered from the fourth room, but it is also possible that items were simply not returned to the Museum. Rinaldo (n.d.: 6-8) lists the following stone artifacts recovered at Saddle Mountain Pueblo: 13 manos, one metate, one worked slab, one pitted pebble, one pot support, one double stone ball, one three-quarter grooved ax, 8 hammerstones, and 36 scrapers. As noted above, only the ax and one hammerstone were returned to the Museum. It is not clear why the hammerstone was saved, but the three-quarter grooved ax is unusual for the time period indicated by the ceramics and architecture on site (Rinaldo n.d.)

PUBLICATION RECORD

Saddle Mountain Pueblo has never been published.

DISCUSSION

Rinaldo (n.d.) believes, on the basis of ceramics and to a lesser degree architecture, that the site is transitional between the Reserve and Tularosa Phases. The Saddle Mountain Pueblo chipped stone assemblage is clearly not complete, but it is unclear whether the ceramic assemblage is complete. Basic analysis remains to be done.

REFERENCES CITED

Rinaldo, John B.
n.d. Notes on Minor Excavations in the Reserve Area, West
Central New Mexico." Unpublished manuscript on file in the Department
of Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. Archives
Box SW 25.


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