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Under contract to Balsz School District No. 31, SWCA, Inc., Environmental Consultants carried out a program of archaeological data recovery at a portion of the prehistoric Hohokam village of La Lomita, in Phoenix, Arizona, during August of 1995. Three areas were excavated in portions of the school property where future improvements are planned. Overburden was removed, and hand excavations were conducted at a total of 21 archaeological features, including ten pithouses or house fragments, three cremation burials, two pits, two canals, two potbreaks, a midden, and a surface or trash area. All the pithouses were investigated, and the remaining features were test excavated or mapped. The excavations resulted in the collection of over 8,000 artifacts, most of which were ceramics. Ceramic analysis revealed a shift in external socioeconomic relationships between the Colonial and Sedentary periods. Botanical analyses (pollen and flotation) identified the remains of corn, cotton, squash, and a variety of non-domesticated plants. Faunal remains were dominated by rabbit and other small mammals. The features excavated are similar to those investigated at the northern part of La Lomita in 1988. This part of the village was found (through archaeomagnetic dating and ceramic seriation) to date to the late Santa Cruz and early Sacaton phases, between about A.D. 900 and 1000.

The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), United States Department of the Interior, was in the initial stages of the Water Management Project designed to bring Central Arizona Project water to the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC). Under terms of a contract signed in 1992 with the GRIC, facilities designed and constructed by Reclamation would deliver 173,000 acre-feet of water annually onto the reservation. Federal law mandates consideration of potential impacts of such projects upon cultural resources and requires that necessary and appropriate steps be taken to mitigate those impacts. In accordance with these laws, Reclamation did a complete inventory of all cultural resources that may fall within the project area. Data resulting from this inventory provided the basis for assessment of the significance of the resources and for the design of plans to mitigate potential impacts to them. Two survey areas in which a water delivery system and associated features (such as dikes) will be constructed were identified by Reclamation. Broad survey areas were defined so the location of eligible sites would be known before specific project design began. In total, 180 sites were identified and recorded during survey. These sites include possible Archaic period materials, a wide range of prehistoric Hohokam site types representing all periods of the Hohokam sequence, possible Protohistoric manifestations, and numerous Historic Pima sites of varying ages. The report consists of two volumes. Volume 1 contains background information; consideration of survey and recording methods; analyses, evaluation, and interpretation of collected data; and recommendations for future treatment of discovered sites. Volume 2 contains site descriptions.