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Galisteo Basin

Galisteo Basin Archaeological Sites Assessment Project

In its 2007 session, the New Mexico State Legislature passed the Galisteo Basin Archaeological Sites Assessment bill (GBASA), sponsored by Representative Kathy McCoy and others. This bill provides funds for assessment of 24 archaeological sites identified by the federal Galisteo Basin Archaeological Sites Protection Act. OAS is charged with implementing GBASA, including the administration of funds and the preparation and submission of a report on the sites.

We were gratified to receive proposals from 12 firms for a total of 59 site proposals and have awarded contracts to 8 firms for 17 sites. Our selection criteria were based on personnel, familiarity with the individual site, and record of report production. OAS will perform the assessment on 7 sites, administer the contracts, assemble the results, and produce the report.

The protection act relies on cooperation among a variety of landholders: private owners, the Bureau of Land Management, the Archaeological Conservancy, the State Land Office, and county government. The size of the allocation and the number of sites means that only preliminary assessments will be possible. Contractors are charged with defining the extent of each site (a more difficult task than it might seem), identifying damage and potential threats to them, and recording their condition in photographs. The BLM and Santa Fe County are providing high-resolution aerial images to facilitate the definition of site boundaries. The information collected will be used to arrive at a formal plan for site protection.

Jessica Badner will be doing GIS work for the project, and we have been interacting with the BLM to obtain the huge image files. We have done some preliminary condition assessment work at the two pueblos, Galisteo and San Cristóbal, where with the support of the Friends of Archaeology we have already done considerable work. We look forward to working on this initial step in protecting and preserving these important sites.