PREFACE

ecause we don’t know how many sites there are in each physiographic unit. Consequently, theproportional area covered by archaeological survey rather than total proportional area was used tocalculate the expected number of components for each physiographic unit. In most cases, there is amarked difference in those two values (Table 3.10).About 3% of southeastern New Mexico has been surveyed by archaeologists. Most of this surveyedspace (51%) is in the Mescalero Plain or, more specifically, in the southern part of the Mescalero Plain(Figure 3.3). West of the Pecos River, surveys in the Seven Rivers-Dark Canyon and Rio Penasco-RioFelix basins constitute over 80% of the surveyed space (Table 3.10). Thus there is a clear bias in surveycoverage toward the southern third of the region. This bias is also evident in the NMCRIS componentdata. Half of the components are located on the Mescalero Plain and another quarter are in the SevenRivers-Dark Canyon basin. We therefore cannot assume that the survey data are representative of theentire region. Further, survey coverage within the physiographic units ranges from 8% for the MescaleroPlains to 0.5% for the Llano Estacado (Table 3.10), which is probably too low to ensure that the sample ofcomponents reflects the full range and mix of sites within any unit.Two-sample difference of proportions tests were used to determine if there were statistically significantdifferences between the actual and expected number of components associated with the physiographicunits. The resulting z-scores indicate the degree of difference between the actual and expected number ofcomponents and whether the actual number of components is higher (positive) or lower (negative) thanthe expected number. A z-score greater than 1.96 or less than -1.96 indicate that the difference isstatistically significant at the 0.05 level.Only two physiographic units have component proportions that deviate significantly from the expectedproportions based on surveyed space (Table 3.10). The number of components is higher than expectedfor the Sacramento Slope and lower than expected for the Pecos River Valley. The drainage basins,which crosscut the Sacramento Slope and the northwest and southwest Pecos Slopes, provide a moredetailed picture of site distribution west of the river. All of the values deviate significantly from expectedvalues. The Rio Penasco-Rio Felix basin has a lower than expected number of components, while theother basins have higher than expected numbers of components. The differences are especially markedfor the Rio Hondo-Arroyo del Macho and Seven Rivers-Dark Canyon basins.The distribution of Paleoindian components (Figure 3.4, Table 3.11) is generally proportional to thesurveyed space, although the Mescalero Plain has a significantly lower than expected number ofcomponents (z = -2.26). The Llano Estacado has a higher than expected number of components (z =1.56), but the difference is not statistically significant. There is no obvious patterning in the distributionof component types relative the physiographic units or drainage basins. However, it should be noted thatthe two possible structures and 21 of the 34 domestic features, are multi-component sites. This raises thepossibility that the projectile points defining the Paleoindian component are either not associated with thefeatures or are heirlooms collected by later occupants of the site. The first alternative would mean thatthe component is misclassified; and the second, that there was in fact no Paleoindian occupation.3-26