Minutes, Cultural and Historical Resources Technical Advisory Team
Subcommittee Meeting
January 20, 2000

On January 12, 2000 the Cultural and Historical Resources Technical Advisory Team created an ad hoc subcommittee to explore the need to further categorize the AZSITE data base to facilitate public reporting on the archaeological inventory of Pima County. That subcommittee met in Conference Room D at the Pima County Public Works Center, 201 N. Stone Avenue, Tucson, Arizona on Thursday, January 20, 2000 at 1:30 p.m. Those present are listed as follows:

Present:
Dr. Beth Grindell, Arizona State Museum
Mr. David Cushman, Pima County Archaeological and Historic Preservation Office
Mr. Henry Wallace, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
Dr. Jonathan Mabry, Desert Archaeology, Inc.

David Cushman began with an update of the problem: To assess whether the temporal and functional categories developed for the AZSITE data base were accurate and sufficiently detained enough for use in developing the preliminary Habitat Conservation Plan due in July, and in the public meetings scheduled for each subarea this spring. He distributed a copy of the time/function categories that was adopted by the full Team on December 15, 1999.

Henry Wallace suggested breaking out "field house" and putting this site type into the Agricultural category. He also pointed out that village sites were particularly important due to their high information value. Those with public architecture could be noted as a separate subcategory to indicate primary villages.

Mr. Wallace mentioned that he looked at all village site records in the Tucson Basin in 1980 and all records for this site type in the Canon del Oro in 1987.

It was generally agreed by those present that any habitation site above the level of the field house would have human burials associated with them, which are particularly important to Native Americans and could be used as a general indicator of traditional cultural places.

Sites size, artifact counts, and number of components were discussed as possible attributes that could be used to distinguish those sites with higher overall resource value. Jonathan Mabry noted that what these things actually measure are "focal points of occupation," which he argued would be important to know for preservation purposes. The group agreed.

Dr. Mabry recommended that "rock rings" be put in the Other/Unknown category due to problems with the recording of these sites. Mr. Cushman asked about the possibility that these sites might be native American shrines and other indicators of traditional cultural places. Mabry said yes, possibly, but that again, the problem was that there were not being recorded consistently and that this type included other phenomenon that may not have anything to do with TCPs.
There was some discussion about the possibility of allowing for sites to be classified by more than one category, since in reality many archaeological sites were used for more than one purpose. Dr. Mabry suggested that the data be transformed into multiple functional categories
by component. This would allow for a residential site with agricultural features and rock art to be designated "habitation " but also be recognized as "agricultural" and as "art." The advantage of this would allow for analysis of multiple functional attributes across space and time. Mr. Cushman voiced support for this, but asked if it could be done quickly. He noted that because of the problem with linking the Arizona State Museum AZSITE data with the site attribute housed at Arizona State Museum, this discussion might be moot given the time frame needed to produce the public subarea reports.

Beth Grindell then gave a status report on the ASM/ASU problem. She reported that Peter McCartney at ASU is the only person who can fix the problem but that he was not responding. Mr. Cushman said that if Pima County could not use the data file to compile the necessary table per subarea, he would ask her to compile these by hand. She explained what was needed to be done technically to resolve the problem and recommended that Pima County talk to Mike Barton and Chuck Redman at ASU. Mr. Cushman asked if she would draft a technical explanation of the problem along with recommendations for solution and that Pima County would include this in a letter to ASU. She agreed.

This was followed by discussion on what kinds of data Pima County needed to communicate to the public specifically. Mr. Cushman went to the black board and listed out the following general categories of information that he thought would be useful to present in maps and in tables.

For archaeological sites:
1. All archaeological sites; prehistoric and historic sites
2. Site that are potential TCPs (prehistoric habitation sites - assumed to have human burials - and rock art sites).
3. Ranch/homestead sites
4. Historic Native American sites.

For historic architectural/engineering sites
Ranches/homesteads
Mines/quarries
Roads/trails/railroads/stage stops
Irrigation/other farming features.

Further discussion ensued on whether the data base could be broken into these categories given the short time frame. No decision was made to do so at this time.

Returning to the handout, Mr. Wallace recommended moving "lithic scatters" from the Resource Processing category to Other/Unknown because this category was really too broad to be functionally attributable to just resource processing.

The group then turned their attention to the temporal categories.

Mr. Wallace recommended that Early Agricultural include the Late Archaic or sites classified to the San Pedro phase. He also agreed that Hohokam should include early ceramic sites as well to limit confusion. He also recommended dropping the Historic Pueblo category because he was not aware that any sites in southern Arizona had been positively been identified as Puebloan and dating to the historic time period.

Mr. Cushman thanked the subcommittee and noted that he would change the temporal/functional categories as recommended and prepare a report to the full Team

The meeting ended about 4:00 p.m.