The Little Ortega Lake Site (Vernon Survey Site 90) is a 200m x 32m "flint factory" or, to use more modern parlance, a knapping station, though several small concentrations of artifacts suggest that structures may have been present on site. No hearth areas were found, however. Longacre (1960) reports that Little Ortega Lake "may be older" than another beach site, Laguna Salada, for which a radiocarbon date of 3280 +/- 60 BP (Gro-1614) was reported (Martin and Rinaldo 1960:115).


EXCAVATION STRATEGY

Martin and Rinaldo (1960:3) moved their field camp to Vernon, Arizona, in 1957 to pursue several questions. They sought: 1) to learn more about the nature and chronological position of the various sites in eastern Arizona in the Show Low, St. Johns, and Springerville District; 2) To ascertain the similarities and differences of this area with the Southwest as a whole; 3) To seek connections, it they exist, between prehistoric and contemporary or historic groups; 4) to work out in detail the local sequences of culture history and to discover the ways in which the various elements in the cultures evolved, how they worked, and how they were interrelated; and 5) to see if the peoples of the Reserve area moved into this district when they abandoned the Reserve-Pine Lawn homeland about A.D. 1350. The Little Ortega Lake Site, along with Laguna Salada, Vernon Survey Site 30, and Vernon Survey Site 31, was excavated in 1957.

Two-meter wide trenches were excavated in widely separated areas where artifact concentrations suggested the greatest likelihood of "former shelter sites" (Martin and Rinaldo 1960). Locus A and Locus C were thought to be "camp" areas, and trenches 14 to 16 meters long were laid out across these loci and excavated in 2m squares. Excavation proceeded in arbitrary 20cm thick levels until sterile soil was reached, usually within about 80cm.

ARTIFACTS CURATED

Martin and Rinaldo (1960:15) list the following totals for artifacts recovered from Little Ortega Lake Site: 19 Manos, 4 rubbing stones, 5 metates, 3 hammerstones, 16 projectile points, 3 knives, 31 scrapers.

The Field Museum curates 230 artifacts from Little Ortega Lake Site, including 51 pieces of charcoal, 54 pieces of chipped stone, 38 chipped stone tools, 3 pieces of clay, 3 hammerstones, 11 manos, 15 projectile points, 4 rubbings stones, 50+
sediment samples, and 1 sherd.

The discrepancies between the two lists stem from the fact that some items (all 5 metates, probably 8 manos) were not returned to the Museum, and the pieces of charcoal,
sediment samples, and debitage (chipped stone) were non-considered to be artifacts four decades ago.

Excavation Records

There are no excavation records on file at the Field Museum

Accession Files

Accession File 2596 states that "20 restorable and 5 intact pottery vessels, 267 stone, bone and shall and baked clay artifacts, [and] 3 fragmentary human skeletons" were returned to the Museum in July, 1957. It is not clear which, if any, on this list are from the Little Ortega Lake Site.

Catalog Files

Prior to the Martin Project, catalog numbers 258282 - 258305 and 258409 - 258463 were assigned to artifacts from Little Ortega Lake. Martin Project Staff assigned 23 catalog numbers to specimens from the site, primarily the debitage, sediment, and charcoal samples.

Photograph Files

The Department of Anthropology photograph archives contains three photographs of the Site. Negative No. 96193 (see Martin and Rinaldo 1960:10) shows the location of trenches through Loci A and C, looking south. Negative No. 96194 shows the same but is taken from farther away; Negative No. 96195 shows the site looking west over Locus C, Trenches A and B, towards the old beach and rocky peninsula. Some of the artifacts from this site are photographed as well, but they are combined with specimens from the Laguna Salada site and must be differentiated on a case-by-case basis.