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The Prescott Branch, as with the Salado Branch, is characterized by very little field work [sic] and less publication. Only two sites have been dug and reported upon in the Prescott area. These are King's Ruin by Edward Spicer and the Fitzmaurice Ruin by Louis Caywood (Spicer and Caywood 1936).
Ceramically, the Prescott Branch is noted for its general crudeness of both manufacture and decoration (King's Ruin: Spicer 1936:28; Fitzmaurice Ruing: Caywood 1936:104-107). Decorated wares show no difference in paste over plainwares (Spicer and Caywood 1936:102).
Decoration usually consists of a black organic paint on a gray background (Spicer and Caywood 1936:33-6). Spicer defined a number of variants, such as black-on-brown, but these were apparently the differences only of firing (Spicer and Caywood 1036:42). One very distinctive characteristic, and to this writer's knowledge, unique in the Southwest, is the decoration of olla interiors (Spicer and Caywood 1936:104-7).
Architecturally, two types of masonry have been defined. In one type, the masonry is based on the ground. The second, has a slab base (Spicer and Caywood 1936:96). Both types are very similar to that found at the Calderwood site (for further discussion refer to Appendix A).
King's Ruin consisted of one pithouse and a cluster of contiguous rooms. The pit house was not dated. The contiguous rooms were tentatively dated by tree rings. The dates ran from A.D. 1026 to 1048 (Spicer and Caywood 1936:13). Tradeware indicated an occupation span of A.D. 1050 to 1200 (Spicer and Caywood 1936:14).
Although the Fitzmaurice Ruin also contained contiguous rooms, it also had outlying non-contiguous rooms. Caywood considered Fitzmaurice to have been contemporaneous to King's Ruin (Spicer and Caywood 1936:101).
The Calderwood Site, which lies nine miles south of Lake Pleasant, is being excavated by the Arizona Archaeological Society. It has tentatively been identified as belonging to the Prescott Branch. The identification is based mainly upon ceramics and architecture at this time, although other traits tend to support it (refer to Appendix A).
The disposal of the dead is very interesting. There was a definite area used for inhumations at King's Ruin, lying to the east of the pueblo. The inhumations normally were extended with an east-west orientation, the head to the east. Of sixty-six individuals recovered, only three children and one adult were not found in the east-west orientation. Of special note however were the grave pits themselves. They ranged from one foot to five feet five inches in depth below the present ground surface. Seven of them had been roofed over with poles one to two inches in diameter. As many of the remaining pits displayed a great deal of decayed wood, it was felt that many of them had also been roofed over (Spicer and Caywood 1936:71-3).
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