The Use History of Small Roomblocks in Pueblo III Period Settlement Clusters of the El Morro Valley, New Mexico

Abstract

This paper examines the use history of roomblocks within a Post-Chacoan era community in the El Morro Valley, New Mexico. It estimates the resident population and calculates the occupation span of two small roomblocks in the Los Gigantes site cluster (LA 56159), a group of more than a dozen residential pueblos dating to the late Pueblo III period (circa AD 1225 - 1275). The roomblocks and surrounding use areas were excavated using an intensive stratified random sampling procedure modeled after the Sand Canyon Small Site Testing Program. Population and occupation length estimates are calculated through a pottery accumulation analysis. Results indicate that El Morro Valley households occupied these roomblocks in the Los Gigantes community for very short periods of time. This conclusion suggests that residential mobility was high among some of the people who moved into the El Morro Valley in the late Pueblo III period. Moreover, it demonstrates that masonry pueblos in some parts of the Southwest may have been built only to be occupied for a few years.