Friday, September 28 through Sunday, September 30, 2018
Cost of trip: $225 for FOA members, $250 for non-FOA members

The Friends of Archaeology (FOA) will offer a two-and-a-half-day tour of the little known Salinas region of New Mexico on September 28th, 29th, and 30th. The tour includes visits to public National Park Service sites and large, harder-to-reach pueblo ruins in the Cibola National Forest. Participants will also visit a recently mapped AD 900–1100 jacal village, the recording of which may help rewrite the prehistory of the area.

Starting Friday, participants visit National Park Service pueblo and Spanish mission ruins at Quarai and view ruins and petroglyphs at Abó. Later, the group travels to Corona for lodging and dinner. Archaeologist and guide Ward Beers talks later that night about the history of the sites the group plans to visit and offers an overview of the prehistoric Salinas occupation.

Following breakfast Saturday morning, the group enters Cibola National Forest to visit Pueblo de la Mesa, Pueblo Colorado, and Tabirá.

A defensive site, Pueblo de la Mesa consists of two or three masonry roomblocks at the top of a small mesa. Tour participants will park about half a mile away and walk and climb up to the site. The mesa top offers a view of the lower landscape, toward nearby salt lakes and plains. Pueblo Colorado, an extensive masonry ruin, contains 21 roomblocks and covers more than five acres. The compact ruin at Tabirá boasts up to 1,000 rooms and includes a Spanish visita mission. The Tabirá site was occupied into the Colonial Period. If time allows, participants will visit additional rock art or petroglyph sites in the Tabirá vicinity. Strenuous hiking and climbing are expected at Pueblo de la Mesa and at petroglyph sites. High-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicles and carpooling will be necessary. There will be no available restroom facilities on this day.

On Sunday morning, the group explores the remains of a newly recorded jacal site. The 30-acre site sits below a mesa overlooking the Salinas region and the plains to the east. The jacal structures here were originally constructed of rock “foundations” that supported vertical wooden poles. These were plastered to make walls. The structures were probably single family dwellings of a few rooms each. Remains here consist of foundation alignments and artifacts associated with the daily lives of former inhabitants. A short, fairly strenuous climb is required to visit this site.

Before returning to Santa Fe, the group pays a short visit to the National Park Service site Gran Quivira, a large, semi-defensive village with spectacular ruins of a Spanish mission.

Bag lunches will be provided both Friday and Saturday. This tour requires strenuous climbing and hiking to several sites. High-clearance vehicles will be necessary to get to some sites. Carpool options will be sorted out after FOA determines who has signed up for the tour and what type of vehicles will be available. Tour packets will be sent to participants in mid-September and will contain site maps and other relevant information.

Please visit www.nmarchaeology.org for additional information. To make reservations for this tour, call (505) 982-7799, ext. 7, after 7 a.m., starting August 28. Cost is $225 for FOA members and $250 for non-members and does not include the cost of lodging.

Lodging will be available at the Corona Motel in Corona, www.coronamotelandrv.com. Contact Rhonda Oord for reservations at (575) 404-8134. All rooms will be $60, plus tax.

Please check back on this website and the Museum of New Mexico Foundation's Friends of Archaeology website for updates.