Abstract
This paper examines an unusual series of features inside a lava tube that may have been used for trapping bighorn sheep, once prominent on the Grants, New Mexico, lava fields. The lava tube reveals both prehistoric and historic use, although the bighorn sheep trap cannot be directly dated. Dendrochronological samples from the various features suggest that the trap could date as early as the puebloan settlement of the area in the A.D. 900s and 1000s, when the Chacoan greathouse and great kiva were established at nearby Las Ventanas (Marshall et al. 1979:187-190; Powers and Orcutt 2005:74-81). Subsequent use of the trap is also indicated, and it may have survived use into the early historic period in the A.D. 1700s and later.
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