ARTICLES BY LINCOLN LA PAZ
Most of the published works by La Paz specifically involved meteors and meteorites, although he did venture into other related areas. One example being his rather interesting article in Popular Astronomy (v58, 1950) which, although related to meteors, involved archeology as well. In the article La Paz discusses the thousand year-old Native American ruins discovered along the crest of Arizona's Meteor Crater rim and originally thought to be pit houses of some ceremonial nature. The pit house, located 250 feet of the crest of the rim was excavated during the summer of 1950 by Boyd Wettlaufer of the University of New Mexico. La Paz writes the following in the article regarding Wettlaufer's excavation:
"The ruin excavated was found to be a single-room structure with a centralized fire-pit. It contained much ash and many pottery fragments, thereby proving it had been a dwelling. Local stone (blocks of the Coconino sandstone from the crater rim) had been used as building material, and the masonry was very crude, only a few rocks having been purposefully shaped. Since the ventilator shaft constituted the only break in the rock walls, entry into the original dwelling was through the roof, as is customary for dwellings of this type. On the basis of the characteristics of the ruins and associtated artifacts, it is believed the dwelling was built prior to A.D. 1300."
At the time of the article as it is today, the crater was in the hands of private ownership, but, in stark contrast to what one finds now, the site was not a commerical venture with throngs of visitors and tourists. For most of the 50,000 years following the impact the crater was pretty much just left alone There were some minor references to it by members of the indigenous population from very early on, even to the point of using pieces of the meteor for ceremonial and ritual purposes. However, the first written report was not made until around 1871 by a man named Albert Franklin Banta. Banta was known as Charley Franklin in those days and serving as a scout and guide for the U.S. Army when he stumbled across the crater. As part of his duties for the military, Banta had as well, worked for a short time at the Bosque Redondo internment camp where the Navajos and Apaches were being held following the infamous Long Walk.
The crater is in an area of intense volcanic activity, surrounded by hundreds of cinder cones and similar geological features, so it was assumed to be of volcanic origin, thus attracting little attention. Even with the coming of Route 66 several miles north of the impact site some sixty-plus years later, except for attempted mining operations searching for the main meteor body and a varying number of meteorite hunters scrounging through the northeast scatter-field looking for meteorite scraps, most of the crater and the land around it remained untouched. At the time the La Paz article was published the area was still much as it had been when Franklin first wrote his report and any reputed archeological sites were pretty much left untouched or ignored. The crater was neither monitored nor patrolled, quite sparse, and for all practical purposes, remote with poor access from the main road and surrounding areas. While investigating the site La Paz was joined and assisted in his research by a rather notorious Southwest bio-searcher who, along with his curandera wife and a young boy, appeared to be, for unknown reasons, temporarily occupying the site. (see)
NOTE: The original source for the article as found in Popular Astronomy and cited above came from a reading by La Paz at the 13th Meeting of the Society, Flagstaff and Barringer Crater, Arizona, September 5-7, 1950.(see)
POPULAR ASTRONOMY ARTICLE SOURCE: