The Archaeology of 5MT1, Stevenson and Porter Areas
By Mark D. Mitchell
There are two different areas of artifacts and architecture at Site 5MT1. In early reports of his work, Joe Ben Wheat (1955aWheat, Joe Ben
1955a MT 1, A Basketmaker III Site Near Yellow Jacket, Colorado (A Progress Report). Southwestern Lore 21(2):18 26., 1981Wheat, Joe Ben
1981 Yellow Jacket Canyon Archaeology. In Insights into the Ancient Ones, edited by J.H. Berger and E.F. Berger, pp. 60-66. Mesa Verde Press, Cortez, Colorado.) referred to these areas as the Stevenson Site and the Porter Site, with both sharing the site number of 5MT1. The Stevenson area has an occupation that dates to late Basketmaker III (AD 675-700). It is a striking residential site with two immense pit houses, two smaller pitstructures, and two roomblocks with a total of 28 small work and storage rooms. The Porter area has three or four components of occupation dating between late Pueblo II and late Pueblo III (AD 1060-1280). Wheat's excavations in the Porter area revealed five kivas; a 12-room masonry pueblo; ten semi-subterranean work and storage rooms; 15 large storage pits and 17 burials. Although there are quite a number of structures, it appears that no more than one or two kivas are occupied at any one time.
This site report includes three general sections as well as detailed descriptions of the archaeology of each area. The introduction to 5MT1 presents an overview of the site's archaeology as well as a short history of the excavations and a description of supporting documents. The site setting places 5MT1 into the context of the surrounding sites and landscape. A short summary synthesizes what can be learned from the data at hand and proposes a variety of research options to expand upon this. Overviews of the early occupation at Stevenson or the later Pueblo occupation at Porter introduce the more detailed archaeological and excavation information for each area.