Archaeological Investigations at the Arroyo Hondo Site: Second Field Report, Douglas W. Schwartz, 1971, School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico

The major goal of the 1971 field season was to arrive at the most  complete conception possible of the architecture of the entire site. Two roomblocks and a kiva were intensively excavated in order to obtain information about such architectural details as wall and floor construction, room features, and wall abutments. Then the overburden was stripped from the total site to reveal the tops of all rooms. Six hundred forty surface rooms were uncovered and completely mapped. The data from these excavations made it possible to create an initial reconstruction of the pueblo. In addition, an understanding of the building sequence was emerging and the first stages of documenting the Pueblo’s cultural history were initiated.

The information obtained from the excavations was combined with the results of the mapping process to make a three-dimensional model of the pueblo. In the course of the excavation, nearly all levels were screened so that as much cultural material as possible could be recovered from the fill and floor levels. The goals of the analysis of this recovered sample were to lay a foundation for future artifact analysis and to refine the chronology of the site.