Cape Girardeau native assists with uncovering archaeological site

HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. — An archaeological site that might shed more light on New Mexico’s ancient history has been discovered recently within the boundaries of Holloman Air Force Base.

Base officials said geomorphologists and members of the 49th Civil Engineer Squadron environmental flight uncovered a campsite in early March that’s about 8,200 years old and belonged to some of the state’s first settlers.

Matthew Cuba, the squadron’s cultural resource manager and a native of Cape Girardeau, said the formation of white sand dunes inadvertently buried the site with windblown silt protecting the archaeological remains.

“This site marks a pivotal moment in shedding light on the area’s history and its early inhabitants,” Cuba said.

He said digs at the site have turned up about 70 items ranging from flake stones to a rare example of an early ground stone.

“We also uncovered a series of hearths, or community campsites, with remnants of mesquite charcoal, which is a tremendous find in and of itself,” Cuba said.

He said the site is one of 400 archaeological discoveries found within the boundaries of Holloman, which was built in 1942 and is located 6 miles southwest of Alamogordo in south-central New Mexico.

Much of the land Cuba works on in New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin is managed by the Department of Defense, which has helped keep archaeological records intact because of the lack of traffic in the area.

“The work that the Air Force does to protect these resources and manage them is second to none. I can’t say enough good things about how the Air Force manages these resources,” Cuba said. “I consider myself exceptionally lucky to be able to be in a position to work with resources like this. They are exceedingly rare, so when you get an opportunity to work with them it really is a treat.”

The initial discovery of the site, also known as the Gomolak Overlook, wasn’t intentional, Cuba explained.

“Gomolak Overlook was discovered by two visiting geomorphologists from the University of Arizona that we’re working on an unrelated project, but happened to be driving down a road and spotted artifacts eroding out of the side of the road cut,” Cuba said. “When they got out there, they were like, ‘Yeah, those are artifacts.’ They then contacted me and that’s how it all started. It was the right guys at the right place, which doesn’t happen very often but it doesn’t happen infrequently, I guess.

“Once they notified me, I went out with them and we started poking around a little bit to see. Because it was an exposed road cut, there was a question as to whether or not it was a disturbed setting. We poked around a little bit and that’s when we found the hearth features which were buried approximately 6 feet deep.”

Typically, the approach to finding archaeological sites begins with a pedestrian survey, where the archaeologists walk along the Earth’s surface with a focus on “identifying and evaluating the cultural resources that are present.”

“Most of the archaeological sites are either in a surface context or a near-surface context,” Cuba said. “Simply by doing a systematic survey, having archaeologists walk that area, we can identify the cultural resources, and that is the normal protocol for identifying sites.”

While many people would think it to be exciting for an archaeologist to discover a site such as this, Cuba said his first reaction is to doubt whether it’s an archaeological site at all. He said the real excitement comes after two samples are returned from radiocarbon dating with the same date.

Cuba is a 1999 graduate of Notre Dame Regional High School and a 2004 graduate of Southeast Missouri State University with a degree in anthropology. His work in anthropology is what allowed him to work in the archaeological field.

“I’d like to say I had a really amazing origin story, and I’ve wanted to be an archaeologist since I was a small child, but that’s not it,” Cuba said. “I started in archaeology based upon a recommendation from an acquaintance who said, ‘You’ve got an undergraduate degree in anthropology, you can go do archaeological surveys,’ and I said, ‘They pay you for that?’ And that’s how it started. I did not go out of my way to say I wanted to be an archaeologist. More than anything, I think I was focused on the adventure and, starting out, archaeology really provided that.”

Cuba has since earned a master’s degree in anthropology from New Mexico State University, graduating in 2014.

“At that point, I was a quote-unquote professional archaeologist,” Cuba said. “A couple of years ago, I was picked up by Holloman and became a cultural resource manager here and it’s been kind of a weird, weird story more than anything, and just catching a few lucky breaks. Getting picked up by Holloman was one of the lucky breaks.”