Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

Cressman and his field party recognized the house depressions at the ZX Ranch site as cultural features, and their excavation strategy reflected this. Trenches were placed across each of the house pits to expose and profile such features as floors, rims, or hearths. Thus, these early archaeological tests are still the most extensive excavations of house features in the Lake Abert-Chewaucan Marsh Basin. Fortunately, the field notes, artifacts, and some photographs from these 1939 tests have been curated for the last fifty years at the Oregon State Museum of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene (stored under Accession No. 61). This material was located and analyzed to provide more data on house pits in the Lake Abert- Chewaucan Marsh Basin as part of a larger research project (Getting 1989). This article is meant to recognize and document the ZX Ranch site excavations.