Treesearch
Chapter 3. Malpai Borderlands prehistory
| Authors: | Paul R. Fish, Suzanne K. Fish |
| Year: | 2006 |
| Type: | General Technical Report |
| Station: | Rocky Mountain Research Station |
| Source: | In: Fish, Paul R.; Fish, Suzanne K.; Madsen, John H. 2006. Prehistory and early history of the Malpai Borderlands: Archaeological synthesis and recommendations. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-176. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 23-44 |
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Abstract
Systematic archaeology in the Malpai Borderlands begins with D. D. Gaillard's (1896) map of the elevated Cloverdale Playa beachline in the San Luis Valley. During his involvement with the U.S.-Mexico International Border Survey, Gailard was drawn to this feature by local ranchers' reports of a massive Native American dam. Familiar with the scale of prehistoric irrigation in the Phoenix Basin, he accepted the raised beachline as evidence of a massive water control construction and reported his findings in the American Anthropologist. The dam was almost immediately recognized as a prominent but natural topographic feature by a variety of geographers and archaeologists, such as Ellsworth Huntington (1914) and E. B. Sayles (n.d.). Nonetheless, the Cloverdale Indian Dam continues to appear in listings of prehistoric Southwestern reservoirs and other water control features (for example Crown 1987a: 220).Parent Publication
- Prehistory and early history of the Malpai Borderlands: Archaeological synthesis and recommendations