Stratigraphy Cultural Deposits Research Statement Field and Lab Methods Conclusions References
The Basketmaker Period is thought to have initiated and developed corn agriculture on the Colorado Plateau between 1000-500 BC and AD 500. Basketmaker II represents the beginning and a substantial part of the 2000-year-old Pueblo cultural tradition. Portions of this continuum are visible among historic Pueblo peoples of Arizona and New Mexico (Charles and Cole 2006;Cordell 1984; Cole 1994)
Questions about the timing and adoption of corn agriculture has a long history in the American Southwest. Artifacts, chronometric dates, paleoenvironmental data, rock art, and human demographics have led archaeologists to question the origins and social organization of the Basketmakers (Morris and Burgh 1954; Irwin-Williams 1973; Berry 1982; Matson 1990; Lister 1997; Lipe 1999). Similarities and differences among Basketmaker II populations and the geographic boundaries are central to the questions raised (Charles and Cole 2006). Two competing models explain differences- in situ development and migration. Cynthia Irwin Williams (1973), a strong advocate for in situ development, proposed that Basketmaker II is a stage in the evolutionary development from hunters and gatherers to agricultural Pueblo villagers on the Colorado Plateau and in the Southwest. Michael Berry (1982) sees the spread of agricultural as a result of population migration north from the San Pedro Cochise culture area below the Mogollon Rim. One of the leading researchers into Basketmaker II prehistory, R.G. Matson, sees the diversity within the larger population as evidence for contemporary but separate ethnic groups.
Students work in 2m x 2m Grids
The discovery in the fall of 1998 of the Darkmold Site, 5LP4991 afforded an opportunity to investigate the first substantial Basketmaker II habitation site in the Durango Area since the excavations by Morris and Burgh over 60 years ago. The results of these recent investigations both challenge and support current ideas on the development of emergent agricultural groups in the mountains of southwest Colorado and for the greater Southwest.
The Durango sites are among the highest elevation Basketmaker II sites in the northern southwest (Robins 1995). The Durango area is considered by some to be on the fringe of prehistoric agricultural predictability; however, inhabitants grew corn and participated in at least a semi-sedentary lifestyle (Charles 2000; Morris and Burgh 1954; Smiley 1995; Robins 1995; Matson 1991). The large number and size of the bell-shaped pits excavated at the Darkmold site suggest a heavy reliance on storage. From the amount of burned corn present in feature fill, it is not unreasonable to conclude that bell-shaped pits primarily functioned to store corn. Macrofossil plant remains, including the charred seeds or kernels of Chenopodia, various grasses including Indian rice-grass (Oryzopsis hymencides), Wild sunflower (Helianthus), and marsh elder (Iva), indicate a diet varied in plant species (Roberts 2000). At 7,000 ft (2,134 m) asl and in a Ponderosa pine, pinyon and juniper woodland, the climax vegetation is one in which the natural edible biomass is variable, unpredictable and low in nutritional value. The introduction of corn fields would have created new habitats with increased species diversity and yield (Winter and Hogan 1986). Maize agriculture could have provided a means of complementing a subsistence economy based upon hunting, gathering, and plant husbandry; in essence the residents became forager farmers. Adapting agriculture to a hunting and gathering subsistence pattern a priori introduces scheduling conflicts, i.e., tying oneself to the land as a farmer while retaining seasonal mobility as a forager (Huckell 1995). One means of resolving scheduling conflicts is to develop greater efficiency in storage (Wicker 1997). It is not implied here that corn was annually predictable, but that during years of bumper crops, enough corn could be stored to weather fluctuating crop yields.
Until very recently (Smiley 1995), chronometric dates for the Durango Basketmaker II sites consisted entirely of tree-ring samples from Talus Village and the Falls Creek Shelters. Tree-ring dates for the Falls Creek Shelters fall between 1900 BP and 1600 BP, while a single tree-ring date of 50 B.C. alluded to an earlier presumably Basketmaker II occupation (Dean 1975). Tree-ring dates from Talus Village indicated an occupation after AD 100.These dates led Morris and Burgh (1954) to surmise that rock shelters predated open-air sites, an interpretation that prevails in much of the literature since their 1954 publication. The range in new radiocarbon dates from Talus Village spans the period from 2230 to 1590 BP (Smiley 1995), and those from the Falls Creek Shelters 2750 to1700 BP (Smiley 1995). The eight radiocarbon dates from the Darkmold site span the period from 2150 to 1500 BP with a tight cluster of dates between 1900 and 1500 BP. Together these new radiocarbon dates allude to two important divergences from earlier interpretations. First, the Durango Basketmakers were probably in place by at least 2700 BP. perhaps longer, implying a rapid spread of agriculture from the Southern Basin and Range to the northeastern extent of the Basketmaker II culture area. The dates from the Darkmold site suggest the coexistence of open-air Basketmaker II sites with rock shelter sites, at least in the Durango Area.
Although a panregional material culture inventory is generally accepted as representing the Basketmaker II period, textiles, baskets, rock art, and projectile points from the Durango Area differ from other Basketmaker II sites, particularly those to the Southwest. With the exception of the arrow-size projectile points at the Tamarron site (Reed and Kainer 1978), projectile point morphology is similar among all the Durango sites. These are broad and corner-notched to side-notched, with a clear tendency toward corner-notching. They resemble En Medio points from the Oshara Tradition ( Irwin-Williams 1973; Irwin-Williams and Tompkins 1968), Elko points from the Great Basin and Northern Colorado Plateau (Holmer,1980), as well as Cienega points (Huckell 1987) and Tularosa points(Matson 1991) from the Tucson Basin and Mogollon regions. Had these typologies been available to Morris and Burgh, they probably would have recognized the regional similarities, but may not have changed their affiliation of Durango Basketmaker II with a Mogollon origin
While coiled basketry with two rod-and-bundle
foundations are reported from most Basketmaker II sites, this technique is
absent from the Durango rock shelters, where variants of half-rod and one-rod
foundation basketry dominate the site 
assemblage (Morris and Burgh 1954).
Variations in basketry and to a lesser extent in textiles can be explained
through differences in cultures and demography (Webster and Hays-Gilpin 1994)
and deriving in part from proto-Fremont/Great Basin Archaic traditions.
Moreover, rock art of a style distinct to the Durango Area is found in the Falls
Creek Shelters. According to Matson (1991) and Schaafsma (1980) the differences
in rock art styles, and fiber artifacts between the Durango Basketmakers and
Basketmakers to the south and west can be accounted for through ethnicity, and
they apply the term Durango-Los Pinos phase to denote the Late Basketmaker II
ethnic group in the Durango Area.
Sample of artifacts found at the Darkmold Site
The range of new chronometric dates may well place the adoption of corn agriculture in the Durango Area as early as 2700 BP The high number of storage features, the reuse of storage pits as burial pits, and the superposition of features are interpreted as long-term investment in a site specific location, a conclusion substantiated through radiocarbon dates. The population experimented with and eventually adopted cultigens as dietary supplements and as insurance against times of food shortage, but remained opportunistic. The fluctuating environment of the Durango Area and the southern mountains of Colorado may have provided the catalyst for the adoption of corn agriculture, supplying a predictable food source for the Basketmaker II people during times of resource fluctuation (Wicker 1997).They were organized into small populations of dependent households who shared strikingly similar material traits over both space and time, but which differed from their neighbors to the southwest. The basic questions of when and from whom maize agriculture was introduced may well have multiple answers depending on the physiographic location under consideration. Therefore, multiple working hypotheses may be more useful to explain the spread of agriculture across such a vast and physiologically diverse region as the Southwest, because these better reflect individual or group choices.
Fort Lewis College Archaeological Field School was granted permission by the landowner to conduct archaeological field school at 5LP4991. Excavations at the site are carried out by students enrolled in the Archaeological Field Techniques class, under the direction of Mona Charles, Archaeological Field School Director, Department of Anthropology, Fort Lewis College.
Overview of the Animas Valley from the Darkmold Site