Rock Island is the location of two platform mounds. One, the Rock Island Mound, is currently under water, but the other sits high and dry on an exposed peninsula known as Bass Point. The Bass Point Mound (U:8:23/177) was probably built near the end of the Roosevelt Phase at around 1260 AD and was abandoned shortly after. Thus, the Bass Point Mound offers a glimpse of the early beginnings of platform mound construction in Tonto Basin.
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The Bass Point Mound was fairly small, but nevertheless may have required additional labor from neighboring sites to transport the thousands of river cobbles needed for its construction. |
| This pedestal would have served as the base for a granary made of adobe and grass. Intensive storage of food is a common feature at many platform mounds as we will see at the next and final stop of the tour. | |
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6/24/94 - phm