Results of Cultural Resource Monitoring, Burial Recovery and Phase 1 Data Recovery (Data Testing) for the City of Phoenix Road Detention Basin Project, Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona

At the request of Ms. Homaira Parveen and Mr. Ed Checkley of the City of Phoenix Street Transportation Department (the City) and under Environmental and Safety Regulatory Consulting On-Call Contract #124947, Archaeological Consulting Services, Ltd. (ACS) conducted archaeological monitoring, burial recovery, and Phase I data recovery for a Road Detention Basin project. The City’s project involved excavating a sloped 11-acre basin ranging from 4–7 ft deep and installing associated lighting and landscaping. Based on the Archaeological Assessment report by the City Archaeology Office, a portion of the basin overlapped part of P:5:2(GP)/AZ T:12:396(ASM), a prehistoric habitation site documented in the late 1920s by Gila Pueblo. The City Archaeology Office recommended monitoring of ground disturbance and/or testing within the site as well as areas of disturbance within 250 ft of the site. ACS conducted that archaeological monitoring between August 12, 2009 and February 3, 2010. The fieldwork was conducted under the authority of project-specific permit 2009-124ps issued by the Arizona State Museum (ASM) and the City of Phoenix blanket burial agreement. Due to the discovery of human remains, burial recovery was conducted, as well as limited archaeological testing to determine if additional human remains were present in the vicinity of the discovery. As features were encountered outside the original site boundary within the 250-ft buffer, the site boundary was extended several times to encompass these features and the buffer was expanded accordingly; this expansion ultimately resulted in monitoring of ground disturbing activities throughout the entire project area. The project area itself expanded beyond the original boundaries during the course of the project to include portions of the public park to the south of the project property and a few other linear extensions. The final project area totaled 16.59 acres.