PERMFILE44990

• Permit No: C1996084
• IBM Index Class Name: Permit File
• Section_Exhibit Name: EXHIBIT 05 CULTURAL RESOURCES REPORT 7
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

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PART I DESCRIPTION OF SLA7186, AND SUMMARY OF
EVALUATIVE INVESTIGATIONS
Introduction

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5LA7186 was recorded in 1996 during the inventory of vazious development areas for the
Lorencito Canyon Mine (McKibbin et al. 1997). The site is located in the northeast comer of a 40-
acre block surveyed for the coal load out facility but will not be directly impacted by construction
of the load out itself. However, a rail spur will be constructed to the load out and v<~ill cross the site's
eas[em side. The Lorencito Canyon road will have to be realigned to accommodate the rail spur and
may also impact portions of the site. A haul road is also proposed between the load out and various
parts of the surface and subsurface mine. This haul road, in its current proposed configuration, will
impact much of the remainder of the site not impacted by the rail spur and road corridor.
SLA7186 includes a historic component consisting of an adobe structure, and several
associated features, as well as a scatter of historic artifacts and debris. Also on the site is a scatter
of chipped stone debitage, chipped stone tools, ground stone tools, and aboriginal ceramics,
collectively referred to as the "lithic component."' Worked glass is also present. Geoarchaeological
investigations indicate potential for intact sediments spanning most of the Holocene and including
sediments from the early Holocene (McKibbin et al. 1997:79-96). The early Holocene is not
represented in the sediment record anywhere else on the project area according to studies conducted
to date. Six Giddings auger probes were excavated at this site in 1996 and both historic and lithic
component artifacts were recovered, though their depths of origin were unknown. Holocene
sediments extended to at least 254 cm in one probe (McKibbin et al. 1997:48). The history of the
adobe structure and associated historic materials was not established, but an infomtant interview
indicated the site might have been first occupied in the 1870s or 1880s and .vas last occupied as late
as t}te 1930s (McKibbin et al. 1997:48). The informant also indicated the site was a "halfway house"
or way station along the freight road that ran up the Picketwire Valley, and was a junction point for
freight traffic that departed this road to go up Lorencito Canyon and over into Vermejo Park, New
Mexico.
McKibbin et al. (1997:48) recommended that the site be considered potentially eligible for
' the National Register of Historic Places for three reasons: 1) there was good, though lazgely
untested potential for prehistoric remains in good context, including materials that might date to the
middle and early Holocene; 2) the contexts of the historic component were largely tmestablished and
' the historic component clearly had good archaeological data concerning function, age and
association; and 3) the presence of worked glass, coupled with the lithic component materials,
' t The artifacts of the lithic component, the chipped stone artifacts, ground stone, and aboriginal ceramics,
are of unknown age and cultural origin. There is good evidence that these materials were, at least in pan, produced
by the site's historic Hispanic occupants, and not by Native Americans. The cultural and temporal association of
these materials is one of the primary research foci discussed later.