The Microwave Site has no microwave tower. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It once had one. This site in southwestern New Mexico is very well known to locals who have been camping here – and gathering potsherds and stones from pueblo walls – for many decades.
For us 21st-Century avocational archaeologists, the site boasts remnants of pithouses, presumably from the Late Pithouse Period (roughly 550 CE – 1000 CE), and a nearby small pueblo ruin of slightly more recent vintage. On the GCAS field trip of August 4, 2019, our group saw that both these sites straddle a ridge with spectacular views in all directions. Our good weather allowed us to see all the way to the Black Range in the east; to Cooke’s Peak in the southeast; and into Arizona to the west. Except for the risk of lightning strikes, it looked to us like a fine place for a small ancient community to have established itself.
Near the remains of the pueblo foundations, we came across an odd assemblage of grey, flat, stone slabs that appeared to belong together, but not to anything else. Few potsherds remain at this site, having been removed by untold numbers of visitors before us. Illegal surface collecting continues to this day. It is one reason that volunteers currently monitor the Microwave Site under the New Mexico Site Steward program. There were still some potsherds to be found that day, however, as you can see from the photos in this post.
Please, people: enjoy but do not touch. Save some of our heritage for the rest of us.
[Photos by M. Smith.]