The Archaeological and Rural Historic Reserve System

Andy Laurenzi, Southwest Field Representative

Introduction

The Center for Desert Archaeology protects the irreplaceable places of our shared past that tell the stories of people living in the American Southwest and Mexican Northwest. When we lose these places, we are cast farther adrift from a “sense of place” in our rapidly changing world. We lose a part of history that helps us know who we are and a part of what makes life—and living it—an enriching experience.

We promote the development of a comprehensive vision to identify, describe, and evaluate what places are important, where they are located, and how we need to protect them. We do this through the systematic organization of information about the known prehistoric and rural historic record in the Southwest. Through the application of objective criteria and expert knowledge, we have helped identify the highest-priority places to protect and the strategies to help protect them. Region-wide, there are many of these precious places that span over 12,000 years of human history. Taken all together, this provides something special: a vision of success on how we can protect a part of our cultural heritage for future generations.

Purpose

Our goal is the establishment of a network of archaeological and rural historic reserves that is managed for the long-term benefit of current and future residents and visitors. The purpose of this reserve network is to achieve long-term preservation of places with high potential for future learning and understanding about our shared past; to teach others about, and increase our collective appreciation for, the past; and most importantly, to maintain the deeply felt relationship between people and their natural and built environment.

Reserve System Design

Scope: Greater Southwest (Northwest Mexico, Arizona, western and central New Mexico, and portions of the Colorado Plateau of Utah and Colorado).

Temporal: Any examination of the past requires a frame of reference with respect to prehistoric and historic time. We propose the following broad time periods for reference:

  • Paleo-Indian (10,000–8500 B.C.)
  • Archaic (8500–1200 B.C.)
  • Early Agricultural/Early Ceramic (1200 B.C.–A.D. 650)
  • Formative (A.D. 650–A.D. 1200)
  • Coalescent (A.D. 1200–A.D. 1500)
  • Proto-Historic (A.D. 1500–A.D. 1700)
  • Historic
    • Spanish Colonial/Mexican Colonial Period (1700–1850)
    • American Territorial Period (1850–1912)
    • Early Statehood (1912–1950)

Spatial: Within these time frames there are areas on the landscape (regions and sub-areas within regions) within which we seek to protect cultural resources to preserve the diversity of our culture heritage. These will constitute the cultural landscapes of the Greater Southwest. Initially, we will focus our efforts on the San Pedro River Valley, building on the approach undertaken by Pima County to identify priority cultural resources.