Rancho Sierra Vista de Sasabe Survey

View of the Baboquivari mountains, looking north from the project area.

Purpose

Desert Archaeology conducted a survey for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service prior to a planned mesquite and brush thinning project on private land adjacent to the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in the southern Altar Valley.

Actions

Records review to identify previously recorded cultural resources and trace the history of the ranch
Survey of 120 acres
Oral history gathering from current landowners about the property

Results

Two precontact sites were identified that likely date to between AD 900 and 1450. These were small resource procurement camps that were repeatedly used.
A previously recorded petroglyph panel with elements typical of Hohokam Preclassic and Classic period rock art styles was relocated in a bedrock outcrop at the base of the foothills.
Isolated bedrock mortars were identified in areas where mesquite and other edible plants were growing under modern drought conditions.
Two historic borrow pits where dirt was mined to make adobe bricks were identified on one of the precontact sites. The bricks were for the ranch house built on the homesteaded property in 1930, the last section to be homesteaded in the Township, made by a “gentleman rancher” from Pittsburgh, PA, who moved to the west for his health.

Date:

May 2024

Location:

Rancho Sierra Vista de Sasabe, Pima County, Arizona

Type:

Class III pedestrian survey

Compliance:

Federal

Lead Agency:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)

Client:

USFWS

DAI Reports:

Project Report No. 2023-188

Services:

Survey

Click any image below to enlarge.

View to the southeast, showing the wall being constructed on the international border.

View of the Baboquivari mountains, looking north from the project area.

Mortar or chepa on isolated boulder.

Mortar or chepa in outcrop at the base of a sheer hillside, next to a small seasonal seep or spring.

The small Couse deer ( a small subspecies of the White-tailed deer) were abundant in the project area.

The petroglyph panel is on a boulder in granite outcrop that is a prominent spot on the landscape, likely the reason for its location as a waypoint and visibility.

The petroglyph design elements are typical of the Gila Style, which dates roughly from about AD 100 to 1450.

One of the sites is a small sherd and lithic scatter at the top of the bajada, right at the base of the hillside.

Red ware and plain ware sherds are typical for ceramics in the area, as are flaked stone debitage of locally available rhyolite and quartz.

The second site had two temporal components: a precontact sherd and lithic scatter and two historic borrow pits dug to mine dirt to make adobes for the ranch house built on the homestead in 1930. In this photo, project director Jim Vint is standing in one of the pits.

The homestead documents provide information on early 20th century development of the project area, and are a glimpse into the last gasp of homesteading in southern Arizona in the 1930s.

Quick Findings