The Switchback Site

5MT2032

The site was named by land owner Jane Dillard for its location along the north and east side of the switchback turn in the access road to her house.

Habitation site.

Site 5MT2032 adjoins four other Ancestral Pueblo sites. Basketmaker III period sites are designated to the east (5MT10714) and across a driveway to the west-northwest (5MT10711 and 5MT10713) from 5MT2032. A Pueblo II habitation (5MT2031) is directly north of the site. Artifact density is fairly continuous across this site cluster and together these sites could be considered a single multi-components site. The current boundaries of 5MT2032 encompass an associated roomblock, pithouse, and midden deposit in the south central portion of this cluster.

.4 acres

The site is composed of a Basketmaker III hamlet and a PII masonry wall on the east side of a north-south trending ridge. Geophysical imaging, mapping, and testing revealed an eight to ten room upright slab roomblock, a large double chambered Basketmaker III pithouse, an associated midden, and a Pueblo II check dam. The Basketmaker III roomblock is L-shaped with one wing of the block arcing north-south across the slope and the other wing running down the slope on the north end. The pithouse is situated just downhill to the east of the rooblock. It is unusually oriented north south across the slope with the antechamber cutting back slightly into the slope. The Pueblo II checkdam runs across a low drainage at the north end of the slope, close to the boundary of 5MT2031, a Pueblo II habitation site.

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

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

2013, 2014

Approximately two percent.

State of Colorado Archaeological Permits were obtained for each field season (2011-2014) to conduct archaeological research.