Cibola National Forest - Goat Spring Pueblo

 

Rubble pile. Short arm of the L. Bear Mountains behind.

Isolated rubble block. Magdalena Mountains in the distance.

Looking towards the spring area. Borrow pit (?) depression

Pueblo rubble. Ladron Mountain (Sierra Ladrones) in the distance.

It had been a cloudy, rainy weekend, (the monsoon having arrived just a bit early in the last week of June) and I was hoping the clouds would hold out long enough for us visit the Goat Spring Pueblo site on our way back from the cabin at Horse Mountain.They did. Sort of. When we go to the site it was in the mid-seventies. It was a very short walk from where we parked, our footsteps crunchy on the extremely parched weeds, rocks and soil ( the rains had not made it to this locale on the east side of the Bear Mountains). 

The main body of the pueblo is an L shape. There is also a detached block on the south side. There appeared to be a kiva-like depression interior to the L, and a another depression (perhaps a borrow pit) exterior on the west  side.The rubble pile of un-shaped stones was several feet high but room blocks were not easily distinguishable on the ground (though they are there on Google Earth). It may have had a second story. 

We wondered around looking for examples of pottery, but this site was pretty stingy. The best spot to find any to look at was around a large rodent burrow.  I would have like to have walked the arroyo to the spring, upstream and to the west of the ruin (although I suspect it might be dry nowadays), but the sun came out, the temperatures rose rapidly and we made an early exit from our exploring.

Two large and one small ceramic sherds, plus and obsidian flake.