Babacomari Ranch Archaeogeophysical and Archaeochemical Workshop
February 10-11, 2007

Carothers Environmental, LLC (CE) and Statistical Research Inc. (SRI)
will be co-sponsoring with Wondjina Research Institute (WRI) a, free,
cooperative archaeogeophysical and archaeogeochemical workshop on
February 10-11, 2007. The workshop is designed to foster cooperation
and exchange of ideas between University of Arizona (UA), Arizona
State University (ASU), Pima College (PC), the US Forest Service
(USFS) the Arizona Archaeological Council (AAC), the Arizona
Archaeological Society (AAS), the Arizona Archaeological and
Historical Society (AAHS) and the Tubac Historical Society (THS), and
various Tribal Units and the Babacomari Ranch. Of particular
importance to WRI is the cooperative use of these new technologies by
students, professionals and avocationalists to give "hands on"
experience working together and gathering useful data which will be
presented at a future conference and be titled:

Case Studies of Combined Survey Format (CSF) Investigations of Two
"Lost" Military Sites in Arizona: Archaeogeophysical, Archaeochemical
and Airbourne Remote Sensing Studies of  La Hacienda y Presidio de
Babocomari and Fort Wallen

Recent archaeological investigations of Historic Era Mexican and
Anglo-American and Prehistoric and Protohistoric Hohokam and Sobaipuri
culture sites on the Babacomari Land Grant near Sierra Vista Arizona
by CE, WRI and DMG Four Corners Research (FCR) led to the discovery of
two major 19th Century military sites that were known from the
literature but had not been scientifically investigated.  Interviews
with local informants and analysis of  TERRASERVER and SPOT imagery
analysis to find the hidden sites of this type and "on the ground"
archaeogeophysical and archaeochemical studies to "ground truth" such
data by WRI led to the identification of extensive features associated
with the sites. WRI has entered into an exclusive agreement with
Babacomari Ranch Company (BABACOMARI RANCH) to initially record and
document these sites.

It was decided by WRI and BABACOMARI RANCH that this project was ideal
for an experimental cooperative training program for archaeologists
and geologists from the  anthropology and geology departments of UA,
ASU, NAU,  PC, and members of AAS, AAHS, AAC, AAS, AAHS, THS and USFS
personnel in the use of the new CSF archaeogeophysical,
archaeochemical and airbourne remote sensing technologies and field
techniques that have just been recently introduced in the US.

The workshop will begin promptly on Saturday, February 10, at 10:00
a.m. at the BABACOMARI RANCH Headquarters near Elgin, Arizona with a
brief orientation to the Project (see the BABACOMARI RANCH website:
http://www.babacomariranch.com  for maps and  directions to the ranch
and background information on the history of the Land Grant). Vehicles
will then be consolidated with as few four wheel drive vehicles as
possible being taken to the sites.

Once at the site of La Hacienda y Presidio de Babacomari there will be
an orientation to the site and an artifact identification\pin flagging
exercise to as to delineate those areas of interest for the
archaeogeophysical and archaeochemical studies. After lunch (bring
lunches for Friday and Saturday and eating utensils) we will be
mapping artifact and feature locations using "low-tech" plane table
and alidade methods (or "high tech" EDM methods if someone is willing
to provide the instrument and instruction) and setting up the grid for
the  EM, Resistivity/Conductivity,  Radiometric and X-Ray Fluorescence
(XRF) archaeogeophysical and archaeochemical studies.

Depending on how things go, we will follow up on the Class I,
"orientation" XRF archaeogeochemical lines with Class I CSF
geochemical lines. The Class I XRF data was presented at a January 8th
Workshop of the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference in
Williamsburg Virginia (please feel free to contact us if you would
like a CD containing that presentation).  The purpose of the Class I
archaeogeophysical surveys is  to calibrate the instruments and see
what kinds of readings the soil and geological conditions will give
us.

After lunch there will be a short group discussion of the goals of the
project, the participants will be broken up into teams for "hands on"
use of the archaeogeophysical and archaeogeochemical equipment and the
"follow up" soil and plant archaeochemical sampling. These teams will
be responsible for keeping the field notes for their portion of the
project and working TOGETHER to reduce and plot the resulting data.
WRI, SRI and CSU Stanislaus personnel will work with each of the teams
to assist in generating useful data which will be presented at some
future conference as either a series of papers with ALL participants
noted or as a Symposium (possibly at SHA in Albuquerque or SAA in
Vancouver, BC in 2008).

Mr. Richard Lundin of  WRI will be providing the EM and Radiometric
equipment and instruction on its use and capabilities.

Ms. Nahide Ayadin of SRI will be providing the Resitivity\Conductivity
equipment and instruction on its use and capabilities.


Carothers Environmental, LLC will be providing the ThermoFisher
Scientific NITON XRF unit for the archaeogeochemical studies.

Dr. Claudia Brackett and her students of the Chemistry Department of
California State University-Stanislaus (CSU-S) will be using and
demonstrating the CE NITON XRF unit for analyzing the metal content of
soil and plant samples with follow up archaeogeochemical (AA & LCMS)
analysis.

Due to forecast of possibly inclement weather, Saturday dinner and
breakfast on Sunday will be the responsibility of the participants but
refreshments will be provided by CE and WRI.  Due to the Tucson Gem
and Mineral Show, accommodations in Tucson and, possibly, Green Valley
and Nogales will be hard to find. We suggest low-cost accommodations
in Sierra Vista, Arizona which is about a half hour drive from the
BABACOMARI RANCH. There are no accommodations in Elgin but there are
several GREAT wineries!

Saturday's schedule will begin at 8:00 a.m. with detailed
archaeogeophysical and archaeogeochemical surveys of the central
quadrangle of the La Hacienda y Presidio de Babocomari Site and the
Quartermaster\Corral Complex of Fort Wallen.

As each of the initial Study Areas of both sites to be investigated
are rather small (roughly 50 meters by 50 meters) we should finish up
by 4:00 p.m. when we shall leave the sites as we found them.

ALL PARTICIPANTS ARE THE GUESTS OF BABACOMARI RANCH AND MUST SIGN A
HOLD HARMLESS\VOLUNTEER AGREEMENT WITH WRI BEFORE ENTERING THE SITES.
WRI has conducted very successful CSF Workshops of this type in
Northern Arizona in 2005 and at Pueblo Grande in 2006 and at SHA in
Williamsburg in 2007 and  plans such workshops for the future on a
seasonal basis with a different industry or governmental Co-Sponsors
and geographic locations for each workshop.

For further information, a Reading List and to let us know you are
coming and how many are in your party, please call me or leave a
message at Carothers Environmental, toll-free, (866) 203-9930 or at
WRI (928) 649-1408 by Monday, February 5th.

Sincerely,

Richard J. Lundin, BA, MA, RPA, ISAP
Historical Archaeologist and Remote Sensing Specialist
Cultural Resources Manager, Carothers Environmental, LLC
Director, Wondjina Research Institute