Archaeological investigations of portions of the San Pedro and Alazan Acequias in San Antonio, Texas
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In the spring of 1977 the Center for Archaeological Research was requested by Ronald Darner, Director of the San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department, to lnvestlgate and record sections of the old acequias, or irrigation ditches, which were involved in renovation and landscaping projects in city parks. The purpose of this report is to present the information gained in this endeavor in lasting and usable form for the future benefit of historians and archaeologists working with these unique and interesting structures. Since time and space do not allow an exhaustive discussion of the acequia system of San Antonio, the reader is referred to a number of other works which treat the subject in considerable detail, such as A Brief on the Acequias of San Antonio, compiled by Minor and Steinberg (1968); Holmes' thesis, The Acequias of San Antonio (1962); and Arneson's article, "Early Irrigation in Texas" (1921); as well as the section on acequias in William Corner's book, San Antonio de Bexar (1890). The only other professional archaeological excavations which have been done in San Antonio acequias were those of the Witte Memorial Museum in two different sections of the Alamo, or Valero, acequia during 1966 (Schuetz 1970) and a brief excavation adjacent to this same acequia within the Alamo grounds by The University of Texas at San Antonio in 1973 (Adams and Hester 1973).