Prehistory of the St. Johns Area, East-Central Arizona: The TEP St. Johns Project
Creators: name: Westfall, Deborah A.
Publisher: name: Cultural Resource Management Division, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona
Year: 1981
Subjects: Springerville, AZ
Apache (County)
St. Johns, AZ
Arizona (State / Territory)
Archaic Period
Historic
Basketmaker III to Pueblo I
Pueblo II
Basketmaker
Pueblo III
Ancestral Puebloan
Archaic
Middle Archaic
Late Archaic
AZ Q:7:31 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:21 (ASM)
AZ Q:11:69 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:34 (ASM)
AZ Q:12:32 (ASM)
AZ Q:12:39 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:28 (ASM)
AZ Q:12:34 (ASM)
AZ Q:12:35 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:33 (ASM)
Platt Ranch
AZ Q:12:36 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:23 (ASM)
AZ Q:12:30 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:27 (ASM)
AZ Q:12:40 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:22 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:32 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:20 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:35 (ASM)
AZ Q:11:68 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:36 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:26 (ASM)
AZ Q:12:27 (ASM)
AZ Q:7:25 (ASM)
Funerary and Burial Structures or Features
Burial Pit
Slab-Lined Cist
Non-Domestic Structures
Domestic Structure or Architectural Complex
Settlements
Encampment
Domestic Structures
Mound / Earthwork
Fire Pit
Room Block / Compound / Pueblo
Rock Shelter
Shade Structure / Ramada
Packrat Midden (Neotoma sp.)
Historic Trash Dump Site
Artifact Concentration
Resource Extraction / Production / Transportation Structure or Features
Archaeological Feature
Artifact Scatter
Hearth
Pot Break
Milling Feature
Milling Bin
Pit
Refuse Pit
Quarry
Roasting Pit / Oven / Horno
Storage Pit
Post Hole / Post Mold
Trash Scatter
Pollen
Shell
Ceramic
Chipped Stone
Fauna
Fire Cracked Rock
Glass
Ground Stone
Human Remains
Macrobotanical
Metal
Tin
Data Recovery / Excavation
Site Evaluation / Testing
Systematic Survey

description: The TEP (Tucson Electric Power) St. Johns Project was conducted by the Cultural Resource Management Section of the Arizona State Museum under contract to Tucson Electric Power Company and was designed to mitigate impacts to cultural resources located within a proposed railroad right-of-way corridor east of St. Johns, Arizona. The proposed corridor begins at a point 8 miles northeast of St. Johns and extends 27 miles southward to the proposed TEP SpringerviIle Generating Station north of Springerville, Arizona. The corridor crosses both State and private lands; no federal lands were involved. Archaeological investigations on State lands were conducted under Arizona State Museum Permits No. 79-15 (Phase I) and No. 79-21 (Phase ll). A preexcavation testing phase determined that 14 of 25 recorded sites within the corridor warranted intensive study; 12 of these yielded evidence for occupation by Archaic groups, and two were small Cibola Anasazi pueblos occupied in the Pueblo II and Pueblo III periods (A.D. 1050 to 1200). The research design stressed the need to describe and define the Archaic culture pattern represented in the St. Johns area, which had previously been the subject of only limited study. Evidence was found for an intermittent Archaic occupation spanning 5500 B.C. to A.D. 600, and the settlement pattern was found to have interesting parallels with the pattern described by Irwin-Williams (1973) for the Oshara Tradition in northwestern New Mexico. Analysis of data focused on describing variability in lithic reduction technology and attempted to ascertain if this variability could be related to temporal and cultural change. The two pueblo sites were found to be in dividual components of a larger Cibola Anasazi pueblo settlement of 11 small pueblos (the Platt Ranch Settlement). The settlement was occupied for a relatively short period--between A.D. 1050 and 1250. An Interesting aspect of the pueblos was that all were constructed of adobe rather than rock masonry. The research strategy addressed problems of determining whether occupation was seasonal or permanent and the subsequent implications for defining Puebloan settlement systems during the Pueblo II and Pueblo III periods in the upper Little Colorado River region.