Santa Fe National Forest, Los Alamos, NM

Harris Environmental supported the U. S. Forest Service’s Santa Fe National Forest’s development of a plan for motorized trails on the Pajarito Plateau north of Los Alamos, New Mexico. The area was previously surveyed in the 1970s and 1980s by the Pajarito Archaeological Research Project of the University of California, Los Angeles. Harris Environmental relocated and mapped sites using high precision GPS. Of particular interest was the complex of Coalition Period (AD 1200 to 1325) fieldhouses and large pueblos scattered across the plateau/canyon landscape. We also investigated evidence of historic use of the area beginning with Hispanic homesteads in the late 1800s and early 1900s and the remains of Forest Service facilities during this same time period.