The Ridgeline Site

5MT10711

The site was named by the landowner, Jane Dillard, for its location on the highest ridge on Indian Camp Ranch.

Habitation site

Site 5MT10711 is part of a cluster of five Ancestral Pueblo sites on the westernmost ridge at Indian Camp Ranch. Sites with primary Basketmaker III components are 5MT2032 and 5MT10714 across a driveway to the southeast and 5MT10713 adjacent and south of the site. A Pueblo II habitation (5MT2031) is directly northeast of the site. Artifact density is fairly continuous across this site cluster and together these sites could be considered a single multi-component site. The current boundaries of 5MT10711 are retained from the 1993 survey and encompas a roomblock, oversized pithouse, and midden deposit in the north central portion of this cluster.

.47 acres

5MT10711 is a mid to late Basketmaker III (A.D. 570-725) hamlet in the north central portion of a cluster of three to four adjacent hamlets. Identified on the surface were three middens and two sections of non-contiguous slab-lined roomblock. Construction of a driveway impacted the largest midden and removed evidence of another small midden. Geophysical imaging, soil auger testing, and excavation at 5MT10711 determined that the rooms in the northern roomblock are contiguous but separate upright slab surface rooms, that there is an oversized double chambered pithouse near the center of the site, and that the southern midden is substantial but deflated.

Approximately 6 miles west of Cortez, Colorado, on the west side of a driveway at the end of County Road K.

Private Property, Indian Camp Ranch Lot 6, Jane Dillard}

2016, 2017

Approximately 5.2 percent of the site area was excavated.

State of Colorado Archaeological Permits were obtained for each field season (2016-2017) to conduct archaeological research.