Rosemont mine will destroy Hohokam ruins, archeologist says

The proposed Rosemont copper mine has been the focus of a huge amount of attention in the Tucson area, but one issue has largely evaded public concern so far: the impact of the mining operation on ancient Hohokam archeological sites in the area.

(I explored the Rosemont issue in depth a few weeks ago in this Zonie Report story.)

The site of the mine contains the ruins of a Hohokam ball field and a large village, says Gayle Hartmann, an archeologist with the Arizona State Museum in Tucson.

The earliest ruins on the property date back almost 1,900 years.

“There’s lots of reasons why this mine shouldn’t be there, and this is certainly one of them,” she says.

The ballcourt and village were initially excavated about 20 years ago during a previous mining company’s exploration of the area.

“It was a large Hohokam village, and it did have a ballcourt,” Hartmann says of the site. “There are not a huge amount of ballcourts in the Tucson area. To have a ballcourt, you had to be a village of some prominence.”

While the ballcourt ruins are not unique, many others have already been destroyed by development.

“It’s not unique, but many of them are gone. They get destroyed,” she says. “From my point of view, this is one more value that we will lose if this mining operation goes through.”

While state law requires that archeological sites be investigated and documented, once the investigation is complete, development projects like the proposed mine can continue, even if they destroy the site in the process.

The Rosemont mine plan of operations devotes only a few paragraphs to the issue of archeological sites.

“The Rosemont Project area has a ranching and mining past, and many relics of these enterprises remain. In addition, evidence from past archaeological surveys indicates that prehistoric sites are present as well,” the plan reads. “Rosemont Project planning has included efforts to reduce the overall footprint of the project to the minimum possible area, thereby avoiding cultural resources to the extent practicable.”

Hartmann estimates that the archeological work will cost the company a minimum of $1 million, and that local tribal representatives will have to be involved.

“In this case, the odds are that the Apache, Zuni and Yaqui will have to be consulted with before anything can go ahead,” she says.

The process could drag out the mine’s development as sites are catalogued and any remains are properly turned over to tribal representatives.

Hartmann, who strongly opposes the mine, says that while the cost of mitigating archeological concerns for the mine site may be pocket change to Rosemont, the time and expense is just one more headache for the company to deal with.

“I think they were naïve when they bought the property. They’re trying to make the public think that everything is hunky-dory,” she says. “They’re beginning to become aware that there is an awful lot that they will have to do before they ever get a mining permit, and mitigating the archeology would be one of them.”

JCR

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