Arizona State University - Sun Devil Spark / Sahuaro Yearbook (Tempe, AZ)

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With torn shorts and visible underwear, they have to slap the dust off themselves everytime they climb out of the trenches. west. Speculation by com- petent observers suggested that Mesa Grande could be an Indian temple, unique in the Southwest. Questions answered, the motorcyclists and minibikers wander away, but not before their names are recorded in a visitors book which keeps track of all the people who make an appearance at the place during excavation. This makes everyone who comes feel important, as though you've signed up for an inter- view at the gates of time. The visitors book is typical of the meticulous records kept by the gatekeepers of the Mesa Grande time zone, as the archaeologists try to preserve on paper what they inevitably 'fixing ry H qt, destroy in the ground by dig- ging. ln case the need for some unforseen kind of information arises later, after the time warp closes permanently, the visitors may be able to provide their impressions and recollections for a later investigation. Hardly a speck of dust is permitted to escape the area without being recorded. Note- books are scattered all over among the wheelbarrows, wooden sand sifters, shovels, and half-empty Coke bottles that the diggers drink from now and then as they bend under the hot sun sweeping loose sand into dustpans like neurotic housekeepers. The students, dressed in their bluejean cut-offs and white T-shirts, are assigned to I1 .. Y-.f ' a trench in groups of two or three. With torn shorts and visible underwear, they have to slap the dust off themselves everytime they climb out of the trenches, which so far have yielded a few soil types, pot- tery shards, slough from adobe walls, some actual walls, and a possible burial pit. Their early an-A - s . ,W , , v's ' ,- 5 I . V159 ' T . jf .gr f-f , , 'if , Z, W ' -fu, 'I' ' F' I 1 V . D .- 9 ' I Y. J ,J . ,- . - -- ' Y ,r . V U 4,7 Je' J. avi 'Y'-if. r:j13swl,, I . .U 9... , , Hp: Ur-' E:-'5'15'4..sg V- -vga. , :wg 'l Z ',-' ' -3212 .f .Jw fn. 5 - .ff.-Qidsugi ' f I - - ww ,fm ! -mi i.v - 3, .ig nm 1 ,ii'm , ' 'L ii, x Cffi -. A 1 A

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fore-runners l i l 'JPY 'mir Q? :riff A, -'C- ., .. .L ' ,fw-,,, -,J - -.J . X492- tween their working area and a trash heap of mangled modern construction material where Arizona State University trucks are parked, with Anthropolo- gy Department stenciled on the doors. The trucks look more like prospector's mules than trucks. They come every Saturday. Bikers occasionally come down from the mound in small groups to ask the people in the northeast corner what 'lu -47' g'5Wf4?f a:.ff ' X 5, .L K 'iii I they're doing. The bikers are informed that Indian ruins are being explored by ASU stu- dents in AN231, a course in archaeological field methods. The site, Mesa Grande, is similar in style and time period to the famous 1000-year-old ruins of Casa Grande on the Gila River, which historians believe was one of the exag- gerated Seven Cities of Gold that Spanish explorer Coron- ado sought vainly inthe South- FN A 1,1 1' .- g i:,.I: 'f lf- 4. , , fx Al, 'Viv , . 4 ,i' in ii -i ' Mesa Grande Site-7 1 'I , - ' 7 A-' :si

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goal, to locate the compound wall, is still being pursued. At lunchtime they break up into four or five groups, half of them choosing to sit in shade, the others opting for the sun. One girl washes away the dust clinging to her legs and arms before lunch with drinking water. So I can get :g .-. ' Q ' e 1 - fr - . a suntan, she tells the others as she uses the rearview mir- ror of one of the trucks to tidy up her face. Her course in archaeological field methods is taught by Sonny Cockrell, a bearded, be- spectacled graduate teaching assistant from Florida. Cock- rell is also in charge of the .1-1-Q-t' , my 0' . .,, s J , 'I - Y: -- ' - - 4.. --' Q --.viii 'J , . -on general excavation project, under a committee composed of the four archaeology pro- fessors at ASU. The features of his face nearly lost in Bulging blonde hair, Cockrell's eyes show some of the wear of six years in professional achae- ology. Cockrell foresees a ten-year V Y :I -1. 4. 1. e-.--1 1 . ' n , Sv' -,- .1 51,5-w...v-,girl -J f -yuf-jQ'f'ff,LI' 50 J' '-+L J- ,Ilr -:gf ,'vd' -n 5' It if. ag, , ,,-,., .,.f.i '50, . , I 24'-i fl 4 .,4g- '- -' , -ar , '1. ,- ' f -QQ: I l F ff ,4 if