Arizona fire threatens hundreds of ancient sites

By Ker Than
14 June 2011 Hundreds of archaeological sites are under threat from a weeks-old, still raging wildfire in eastern Arizona. (See Arizona-fire pictures.) Since it began in late May, the so-called Wallow Fire—the biggest in Arizona’s history—has burned at least 733 square miles (1,900 square kilometers), and has now crossed the state line into New Mexico (regional map), the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Within that vast expanse are large swaths of Arizona’s Apache and Sitgreaves National Forests and New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, parts of which have already burned. Both forests contain thousands of known prehistoric and historic archaeological sites, from Native American stone ruins to remnants of 19th-century mines and mills. The majority of the threatened sites once belonged to the Mogollon culture, a Native American farming civilization that occupied the region between around the year zero and A.D. 1500, said Bob Schiowitz, the U.S. Forest Service archaeologist for the Gila National Forest. Schiowitz estimates there could be up to a thousand known Mogollon sites that could be affected by the Wallow Fire. However, “not all of those are incredibly significant,” he said, referring to the rubble piles that make up most of the sites. Among the more exceptional sites are areas with standing architecture as well as rock shelters and cliff dwellings with “exceptional preservation,” he said. Ancient rock paintings are also at risk, he added. “If the fire’s hot enough, it can cause all that stuff to chip and flake off.” …