Editors: Photographs are available by calling Greg Swenson at (303) 492-3113.
What began with a farmer's discovery of some pottery sherds in 1953 led to one of the most extensive and detailed excavations of an ancient Pueblo Indian community in southwest Colorado.
Now a group of University of Colorado at Boulder students and researchers are working to reorganize more than a million artifacts that were unearthed during the extended dig begun by the late CU-Boulder archaeologist Joe Ben Wheat starting in 1954.
While much knowledge has been gleaned from the cluster of Anasazi ruins near Yellow Jacket, Colo., dating back to about A.D. 630, there is still much to be learned from the artifacts in the collection, according to Steve Lekson, curator and professor of anthropology at the CU Museum.
"It's widely agreed that the research potential of the collections has barely been tapped," Lekson said. "A major reason for this is quite simply their size. The vast holdings and complex site histories are intimidating and navigating through the complexities of the field research, in its intricate detail, is a daunting task."
In February 2004, Lekson received a grant from the State Historic Fund of the Colorado Historical Society to help reorganize the collections, a vital step in making them more useful for research. The project also received additional funds from the estate of Joe Ben Wheat, who died in 1997, and the Archaeological Conservancy of Albuquerque, N.M., which now oversees much of the Yellow Jacket site.
"To make the collections more user-friendly, we are rebagging and reboxing everything and entering it all into a database on a computer system," said David Cain, a graduate of the museum and field studies program at CU-Boulder who is working on the project. "The goal is to really streamline the research process."
The grants, which totaled $113,343, are funding the process of reorganizing the artifacts, creating a public database for the collection and developing a Web site, which is currently under construction.
"It's like a giant library that was built over a 40-year period, where each year an addition was put on," Lekson said. "We want to bring all those additions together."
Doing so hasn't been an easy task, as the "Joe Ben Wheat Site Complex" collections account for more than half of the museum's archaeological collections, according to Lekson. The collection consists of more than a million stone tools, pot sherds, animal bones, corn cobs and other food remains, all of which offer insight into the lives of the ancient residents of southwest Colorado.
"For example, by looking at the different shapes and styles of pottery found in certain locations on the site, you can tell when different rooms were occupied, which can then be used to add to our knowledge base," said Cain. "One of the biggest benefits of this project will be that the collections will be completely accessible to students, staff and professors who can use them for teaching and research."
An equally important component of the collections, Lekson said, are the extensive notes, maps and photographs which document in detail the ancient architecture, modern excavations and the archaeological contexts from which the artifacts were recovered. Richard Wilshusen, a CU-Boulder graduate who earned a doctorate in anthropology, is writing brief site reports and users' guides for all of the excavated sites, which will be included in the database on the Web site when the project is finished.
Graduate students Jeannette Mobley-Tanaka of Arizona State University and Mark Mitchell of CU-Boulder also worked on the site reports, while seven CU-Boulder graduate students in anthropology and the museum and field studies program helped with the reorganization part of the project.
Making the collection more accessible to researchers is significant because of its ability to tell the story of ancient life through many centuries leading up to the migration away from the Mesa Verde area between A.D. 1250 and 1300, Lekson said. There was almost continuous use and rebuilding of homes at the site from the seventh through the 13th century, with one notable gap in the ninth century when the site was deserted.
During its height at about 1250, the Yellow Jacket community was home to as many as 2,000 people, according to Lekson. The Joe Ben Wheat Site Complex, considered a suburb of the greater Yellow Jacket community, was a village of six or seven houses. It is well known for the large number of "kivas," underground structures often used as religious sites. By 1300, these people were gone, as were all the tens of thousands of Pueblo people of the Mesa Verde area.
The Joe Ben Wheat Site Complex recently was accepted to the National Register of Historic Places. Most of the reorganization project is expected to be completed by mid-March.