In 1990-1992 when a team of archaeologists and local volunteers gathered together to dig test tranches on the Santa Fe Plaza, the expectations were high. Unfortunately, as the result of centuries of disturbance few architectural features were found.  An Albuquerque Journal reporter smartly remarked that “When archaeologists dug up the Santa Fe Plaza to see what it had been in the 1600s, they discovered that it had been a plaza.”  The artifacts were there, but they remained to be found by a later plaza excavation in 2016.

But all was not lost.  A positive result of the study was the generation of reports and analyses done for the excavation.  Some of this material is shown in the Santa Fe Plaza Study I available here.  Study II include analyses of the faunal (animal bones) and wood remains that were found in the excavation.  Also included are a short history of the Plaza, an environmental background of the plaza (floods, swamps, drought).  In addition, this article includes a chronology of Plaza facts, and stories written by archaeologists, historians, and historic preservationists about events occurring on the Plaza as printed in the New Mexican.   This article includes contributions from David Snow, Cordelia Snow, Stanley M. Hordes, David Grant Noble, Boyd Pratt, Linda Tigges, Corinne P. Sze, and Thomas E. Chavez.