To Dig -- Or Not to Dig

Conservation work on Compound A is on-going. A new coat of mud is needed at least every two years to replace the topcoat worn off by rain and wind.

NPS

Did you know that digging any ancient site is destructive? Once archeologists excavate a site, its value for further investigations decreases. Both the mound in front of you and the compound where you saw the Casa Grande have been excavated.

Nowadays archeologists use less invasive ways to explore. Ground-penetrating radar can show us walls still hidden underground—without digging. High-definition laser scans minutely measure structures. Laser scans can reveal what has been lost to erosion over the years.

Throughout the National Park Service these days, archeologists strive to use nondestructive technologies. Here at Casa Grande Ruins you can see preservation archeology practiced. Walls are regularly coated with a mud mixture to protect them from damage from the wind and rain.

Jesse Walter Fewkes first excavated here in 1906–1908. Fewkes wanted to make Casa Grande Ruins into "the first Exhibition Ruin." This was then a completely new idea: preserve an archeological site and use it to educate visitors.

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A PDF of the wayside (15,146 KB) is available.

 

• Why not expose it all?

  
  

  David Winchester, park volunteer and retired park ranger, answers the question- why can’t we go see it all?

  Credit / Author:

  NPS, movie outtakes, thanks to volunteer editor Jenise Cook

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  [David Winchester] People ask sometimes, well why don’t you continue excavating? There are other sites that are pretty well preserved, they haven’t been dug into at least extensively that sort of thing, at the monument. And I try to remind people suppose Doctor Fewkes had gone ahead and dug up everything when he was here using the technology at the time. What he would have done was disturb or destroy those sites for any possible serious investigation, archeological excavations or investigations later on. So we like to think sometimes that future archeologists will thank us for not having gone ahead and dug everything up using what we think is cutting edge technology today.