Above Top:  Slide Show from Sears-Kay and Agua Fria National Monument Field Trips with Scott Wood.

                 Above Bottom:  Drone Video from Chaparrel Pines and Portal Field Trip  Descriptions of Past Field Trips

Link to Goat Camp Excavation Page

What's New:

October 15, 10AM:  Jim Krehbiel, Site Lines and Sight Lines, further discoveries in southeast Utah.  Our guest speaker will be Jim Krehbiel, Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at Ohio Wesleyan University.  In his illustrated presentation, Jim will discuss his astronomical research at Ancestral Pueblo sites in southeast Utah.  He will make a chronological presentation showing alignment systems employed by Basketmaker III, as well as Pueblo I, II and III cultures.  New findings have provided insights about one lunar alignment pattern in particular.  Jim will also discuss how alignments are sometimes clustered in groups from a common site location or shrine and how this may reflect the identity of a site’s occupants and usage.  

Jim works with Natalie Cunningham, an astronomer and writer who will be present for questions after the presentation.  Currently they have completed archaeoastronomy surveys at 341 Ancestral Pueblo sites in the region of Bears Ears National Monument.  Jim uses his archaeoastronomy field research as the impetus for his printmaking and digital imaging art work.  

October 29, 10-1:  Shoofly Village Ruin Open House  Sponsored and Presented by the Friends of the Tonto National Forest.  Shoofly Village Ruin, just north of Payson, was built and occupied between A.D. 1000 and 1280 by prehistoric peoples with ties to the Hohokam and Salado Cultures. The village contains 87 rooms and many courtyards, all surrounded by a compound wall that encloses about four acres. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Retired U.S. Forest Service archaeologist Scott Wood will be leading tours of the site and sharing insight into the historical use of the village and its inhabitants. Learn about the work the Friends of the Tonto National Forest do to maintain and protect Shoofly, and enjoy snacks and beverages provided by Friends of the Tonto.  Shoofly Village Ruin is just northeast of Payson on Houston Mesa Road.  For more information and to register, visit:   https://www.friendsofthetonto.org/shoofly-village-ruin/

Shoofly Open House          Shoofly Ruin          Shoofly Excavation Reports 

October 29-30:  2022 AAS State Meeting hosted by the Verde Valley Chapter.  The Saturday functions are at the Sedona Elk's Lodge,110 Airport Rd, Sedona, AZ 86336.  The theme of this year's State Meeting is Rock Art of Arizona ...and Beyond.

State Meeting Registration and Information Packet

Saturday October 29 Schedule:

10 am - 11:30 am: Silent Auction bidding & item purchases

11:30 - 12:30 pm Lunch will be served
12:45 - 2:00 pm Keynote speakers : Evelyn Billo & Kelley Hays-Gilpin

Break

2:00 - 3:30 pm Mini-Presentations by:

Rock Art of SW Arizona by Aaron Wright

Hawaiian Rock Art & Comparisons to Southwest Rock Art by Ka’imiloa Chrisman,

Red Cliffs Incised - An Archaic Rock Art Tradition at the Palatki Heritage Site by Spence Gustav/Jon Petrescu,

HAPPY HOUR & SILENT AUCTION WINNERS

5:30 to 6:30 pm Dinner will be served

Sunday October 30 Schedule:  Sign-up sheets will be available on Saturday starting at 9 am. First come, first served basis; space

is limited for each tour:

Loy Canyon Rock Art Site led by Scott Newth

Verde Valley Archaeology Center: docent led tour

V-V Heritage Site led by Ken Zoll (Ex. Dir. Verde Valley Archaeology Center)

Palatki Heritage Site: led by Spence Gustav

Goat Camp:  AAS Members will continue excavations at Goat Camp on selected Saturdays and Sundays October through December.

Goat Camp Information, Excavation, and Lab Opportunities

About our Chapter:

The Rim Country Chapter of AAS is located in Payson, AZ, at the base of

the Mogollon Rim.  Meetings generally include a guest speaker presenting

Meeting Time and Place:

The Rim Country Chapter (RCC) will be resuming in-person Monthly Meetings beginning in September.  Meetings will be held in the morning at 10:00 am on the third Saturday of each month (except summer) unless otherwise specified.  Come a little earlier to mingle and help out set-up.  RCC will be meeting at a new location on the edge between Payson and Star Valley, south side of Highway 260:

     US Forest Service Ranger Station

     1009 E State Highway 260,
     Payson, AZ 85541

Map to Meeting Location       Map of Meeting Location 

The facility is very new and Rim Country Chapter is the first organization outside of the US Forest Service to use it.  Much thanks to the Payson Forest Service Ranger Station people for making this Meeting Location available to AAS RCC at no charge.  We need to keep it clean and orderly and undamaged.

The entry gate to the parking area is a code entry sliding gate that closes after a brief time if no more vehicles enter.  Initially, an RCC Board Member will open the gate and keep it open.  It would be nice if some early arrivals would volunteer to take on this task to keep the gate open or open it for later arrivals.  The gate opens automatically for exiting vehicles.  The meeting room door works the same way.  It would be nice if a volunteer would keep the door open or open it for later arrivals.  Very early arrivals may assist with room set-up if they are so inclined.  This involves moving some chairs and tables.

Please think about how you might volunteer in the coming months to help out regularly in just some small way (or big if you are ambitious) to assist in Rim Country Chapter Meetings and activities.  It is a herculean task for just two or three people to plan, prepare, and do every little thing, or even to just direct them.  But if many people reliably each take care of a small task, nobody really has to do much.

Membership:

Fun Things to Do:

A group of geologists, archaeologists, and AAS members created the below guide for people who would like to enjoy the outdoors on Agua Fria National Monument.  It's a 12 page, illustrated guide to a incredible area with a river at the end.

Geology, Archaeology, and History Guide to Badger Springs Trail    

More on Agua Fria National Monument

Volunteer Archaeology Work at:  Goat Camp Ruin

Archaeological Sites to Visit (hours may vary):  Shoofly Ruin  Tonto National Monument (big file)

Agua Fria National Monument  Sears-Kay Ruin Besh ba Gowah Ruin  

Verde Valley Sites  Arizona Archaeological Sites

YouTubes: Drone Videos of Ruins  Rim County Museum  Sharlot Hall Museum

Archaeological Institute of America (AIA)  Heard Museum  SAR  AAHS  

Pueblo Grande Museum  Verde Valley Archaeology Center  Amerind  Crow Canyon  

Arizona State Museum   Archaeology Southwest  Grand Canyon NPS  

Museum of Northern Arizona

2022 Speakers:

2022 Chapter Officers:

Past Activities:

September 17:  J. Scott Wood presented Getting up to Date at Goat Camp Ruin.  It was a PowerPoint presentation of the latest work completed in the Spring for the Chapter's Goat Camp Ruin excavation and interpretive development project.  Scott Wood has been leading the still ongoing all-volunteer excavation of the Goat Camp Ruin.  Goat Camp Ruin is a small prehistoric Northern Salado masonry village of some 25 rooms from the Hohokam Classic Period (1150-1450 CE).  Earlier the site was one of the largest pre-Classic Hohokam pithouse villages in the Payson area.  And the site has evidence of a later Apache reoccupation.  Goat Camp Ruin is mostly owned by the Town of Payson.  The Town proposes to develop this site into a small interpretive archaeological park and a point of interest along the Payson Area Trail System.  However, in the meantime it has been under excavation for some ten years by AAS members.  After the meeting, Archaeologist Scott Wood conducted a narrated guided tour of Goat Camp Ruin.

May 21 Verde Valley Archaeology Center Dyck Collection Tour:  Rim Country Chapter had a Docent-led tour of the new VVAC facility and museum with the Dyck Collection of perishable artifacts.  This included the expanded Dyck Exhibits.  For those of you not familiar with this collection, the Dyck collection contains a large number of well-preserved wooden, reed, hardshell squash, and gourd artifacts. Some of these are raw materials stockpiled for use later in time, others are modified and used for unknown purposes, while others were worked for specific tasks.  These included digging sticks and wooden hoes for planting seeds, equipment to start fires, paddles for making pottery, wooden sticks and other flat tools, sticks used as applicators for applying pitch as an adhesive and other purposes, throwing sticks for hunting rabbits, and bows and arrow foreshafts for hunting small and large game.  Mexican Restaurant for Lunch was followed by Fort Verde State Historical Park.  Photo summary VVAC, Salt Mine, and Fort Verde.

April 23 Field Trip to Prehistoric Payson & Pine Ruins in Two Gated Communities:  Dale Bellisfield guided this tour of gated community sites, one in Payson and one in Pine.  The Chaparral Pines site, contemporary with Goat Camp, includes a 12-room residential site, with two plazas.  Tree ring dates put the last site activity around 1280, about when the general abandonment of the Payson area was in process.  Photos   Trip Report  The Portal IV site has a stunning view of the Mogollon Rim to the north.  It consists of a walled compound, surrounding a three-room structure.  It was initially thought to be a hilltop fortification, but evidence does not support that, nor that it was a habitation or a signal tower. Recent thought suggests possibly a hilltop ritual enclosure.  It is believed that the site was built between 800 – 1100 AD with radiocarbon dates found between 1020 – 1224 AD.