Review Draft (Project No. 03-09): Archaeological Investigations on State Lands along the Santan Expansion Project Pipeline Corridor, Pinal County, Arizona

Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District (SRP) plans to construct a natural gas pipeline along its Santan Expansion Project, between Gilbert and Coolidge in Maricopa and Pinal counties, Arizona. In order to mitigate the impact of pipeline construction on culturally significant properties, SRP contracted Northland Research, Inc. (Northland) to recover archaeological data from 10 sites located along the proposed 36-mile long pipeline corridor. Northland subsequently conducted eligibility and extent testing in portions of the 10 sites that fell within the SRP pipeline corridor and found that seven of the sites warranted additional data recovery (Hart and Craig 2003). Four of the sites where additional work was recommended were located on or near the middle Gila River, under the jurisdiction of the Arizona State Land Department (ASLD). These four sites, AZ U:15:248(ASM), AZ U:14:54(ASM), AZ U:14:361(ASM), and AZ U:14:74(ASM), were considered eligible for the Arizona and National Registers of Historic Places (AZ/NRHP) based on their potential to inform on local and regional prehistory (Hart and Craig 2003). The following report documents the results of Northland’s data recovery operations at these sites.