Abandoned Mine Land Program
The OAS continues to conduct clearance surveys for the Abandoned Mine Land Program, Mining and Minerals Division, which is part of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department.

Casas Grandes
The Casas Grandes region of northern Chihuahua holds evidence of perhaps the last great economic and political system in the prehistoric Southwest and northern Mexico. Since archaeologist Charles Di Peso excavated the prehistoric Casas Grandes town of Paquimé, the site has been interpreted as the nexus of a trade system bridging the great civilizations of Mesoamerica and the smaller Pueblo communities of the Southwest.

Galisteo Basin
Twenty-four sites named in the federal Galisteo Basin Archaeological Sites Protection Act will be investigated by the OAS and other contractors.

Gavilan
OAS examined and excavated portions of eleven prehistoric sites and one historic site in the Ojo Caliente Valley. Most of the prehistoric sites contained gravel-mulched fields and other features related to Pueblo farming in the valley during the Rio Grande Classic period.

High Rolls Cave
OAS archaeologists conducted archaeological testing at High Rolls Cave in 1996 and 2000, revealing deposits from the middle and late Archaic periods—about 3,500 years ago. The excavations exposed deeply stratified materials, floors, diagnostic artifacts, and features radiocarbon dated to 1500 BC to AD 250.

Jicarilla
Excavations along New Mexico 537 on land belonging to the Jicarilla Apache Nation revealed Gallina-period and Dinetah Navajo sites along with a previously unrecorded pictograph of the Twin War Gods of the Dinetah phase and a panel of other pictographs.

La Plata
Discerning relationships within the Totah and between it and Chaco is part of what we at OAS are studying in our long-term study of the La Plata Valley. The La Plata is the smallest of the three rivers conjoining in the Totah and probably the most useful for developing irrigation. Our archaeologists excavated parts of 34 sites for the New Mexico Department of Transportation as part of improvements to the La Plata Highway.

Loving Lakes
OAS crews spent from late 2006 to late 2007 excavating open, prehistoric camp sites in southeast New Mexico. The work was undertaken in conjunction with the New Mexico Department of Transportation and the Bureau of Land Management, Carlsbad Office, along the proposed realignment of New Mexico Highway 128 between Loving and Jal.

New Mexico History Museum
Between October 2002 and October 2004, OAS completed excavations behind the Palace of the Governors in advance of construction of the New Mexico State History Museum in downtown Santa Fe. During fifteen months of fieldwork conducted by our archaeologists and more than thirty volunteers, we recovered more than 800,000 artifacts, and exposed and documented 200 cultural features from early Spanish Colonial to early statehood occupation of the Palace of the Governors grounds.

Northwest Santa Fe Relief Route
The OAS investigated 60 archaeological sites on the Santa Fe Piedmont with at least 77 temporal components. Fourteen of those sites were excavated, revealing a 7,000-year history of occupation in the piedmont from the Early Archaic to the historic Pueblo and Euroamerican periods.

Padoma
The sustained prevailing winds of southeast New Mexico and the elevated setting of San Juan Mesa are ideal for generating electricity from wind energy. The San Juan Mesa archaeological inventory was conducted in advance of the construction of a wind-generated power plant.

Peña Blanca
OAS excavations at seven sites along NM 22 provided new information on identity, subsistence, and community at various scales over almost 1,500 years of human occupation.

Pueblo de Santa Fe
The city of Santa Fe was built on top of the ruins of occupations that probably began in the thirteenth century. The site of the Santa Fe Civic Center, currently under construction, typifies a pattern of change that has occurred over the centuries.

Santa Fe to Pojoaque Corridor
In 1997 the OAS began excavations at three sites near Pojoaque, New Mexico, in advance of the reconstruction of the US 84/285 highway. The sites had great potential for examining issues of prehistoric Puebloan social structure, community development, and economy, and Spanish Colonial settlement and land use.

Seven Rivers
The OAS investigated 23 hunter-gatherer thermal features in three burned-rock and artifact-scatter sites in Eddy County.

State Land Office
For several years, the Office of Archaeological Studies has been conducting archaeological surveys for the New Mexico State Land Office.

Twin Lakes
Excavations along US 666 at Twin Lakes resulted in the documentation and collection of 24,145 artifacts and samples, mostly from two sites. The features at these sites indicate a high level of organization and suggest that this location functioned as a seasonal camp occupied to exploit an agricultural setting.