WATER MANAGEMENT AT CREEKSIDE VILLAGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE, TULAROSA NEW MEXICO: MULTIPROXY RECONSTRUCTIONS OF A MESILLA PHASE RESERVOIR

In the Tularosa Basin, southern New Mexico, the small Rio Tularosa watershed is the primary source of water for rural communities and hosts multiple biodiversity hotspots along the riparian zone. Now more than ever, this primary water source needs to be conserved and managed. To understand water resource conservation in the Tularosa Basin, we must first reconstruct natural and prehistoric anthropogenic processes across the system, paying particular attention to prehistoric water management features such as canals, reservoirs, and agricultural terraces, which change the structure and geomorphology of the watershed over time. This reconstruction will provide a deeper understanding of how the modern river system has changed naturally and due to long-term use and modification over human occupation. This is important for local water resource management and can serve as a framework by which we understand the response of small river systems to human modification. The Rio Tularosa flows by many Mesilla phase (A.D. 200–1000) archaeological sites and a series of associated irrigation ditches, agricultural terraces, and an in-filled ancient reservoir. The reservoir covers an area in of over 50 meters in diameter and has slowly infilled with sediment after it became unused. This reservoir, as well as the associated canals and terraces, demonstrate the sophisticated management that Indigenous populations practiced on the watershed. Here we present our ongoing efforts at the reservoir site, focusing on the reconstruction of the timing of reservoir use and abandonment, as well water management and agriculture efforts using palaeoecological and geochemical methods.