University of Virginia Library

Location and Setting:

The small house ruin of Tseh So (Bc50 survey number) is located
approximately in the center of Section 13 (University of New Mexico
property), Township 21 North, Range 11 West. This is about Latitude
36°3′ North, and Longitude 107°58′ West. The ruin is located on the
gently inclined sandstone pediment of a sandstone and shale (Chacra
sandstone and Allison members) spur that juts northward from the
south mesa wall of the Chaco Canyon. The toe of this spur extends
into a nearly level embayment of the south mesa, between the low Casa
Rinconada ridge on the west and the high cliffs of an eastern promontory.
Immediately south and east of Tseh So the cliffs are low,
running from fifty to one hundred feet, but they ascend by a series of
shelves and low scarps to the mesa top which is more than three hundred
feet above the canyon floor.

The canyon floor is, at this point, nearly half a mile wide from
north to south, and is nearly bisected by the channel of the Chaco River.
From Tseh So to the bank of the present channel is a trifle more than
one thousand feet. The banks are steep, between twenty-five and thirty
feet high, and are being cut away rapidly by lateral erosion of the
Chaco River and by the ephemeral torrents that cascade down the banks
from southern draws after heavy precipitations on the south mesa. Reentrants
of the south mesa, on both sides of Tseh So, are, at present,
sandy bottomed draws that extend into the mesa front approximately
a quarter of a mile. They have recently commenced to channel in their
upper portions.

Over the Tseh So ruin and the adjacent canyon floor lands there is
a sparse vegetation of chico or black greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus),
tumble weed or Russian thistle (Salsola pestifer), crownbeard
or smelling sunflower (Verbesina enceliodes exauriculata), and
scattered grasses. Herbaceous forms dominate; there is no tree
growth; and the chico is the only shrub in the immediate area. The
soil is a grayerth, derived from the sandstones and shales of the vicinity.
It is normally a transported sandy loam, of considerable depth,
with some organic content from the carbonaceous shales, but practically
lacking in potash, phosphates, and nitrates. Iron, sulfur, gypsum

(calcium sulphate), white alkalis (sodium chloride and sodium sulphate),
and black alkali (sodium carbonate) are present in varying
amounts. This soil is classified by the United States Bureau of Soils
as a Brown Soil, but it is more properly to be classed with the desert
gray soils.[1]

The Tseh So site is but one of several small house sites in this cove
to the east of Casa Rinconada. There are also traces of numerous pit
houses. From the upper edge of Tseh So can be seen most of the sites
of the main ruin area, including Casa Rinconada, Pueblo Bonito, Chetro
Ketl, Pueblo Alto, and Pueblo del Arroyo.