Our second season at Kuykendall Ruins began on November 8, 2006 when we moved our field quarters onto the site. Electricity and telephone service had been installed, a trailer-mounted water tank had been purchased, and a sanitation system had been constructed.

Operations proceeded under a Research Design that called for a professional archaeologist to be added to the team. Nugent Brasher asked five Southwest archaeologists to recommend a field archaeologist to help with a project concerning “historical archaeology in southeastern Arizona.” Three archaeologists recommended the same person – Dr. Deni J. Seymour of Albuquerque. She was characterized as a leading expert in proto-historic archaeology, an excellent field archaeologist, and an astute businesswoman with independent means.

On October 22, 2006, Nugent interviewed Deni in New Mexico without revealing the location of the presumed discovery at Kuykendall. Her interest resulted in a Letter Agreement signed on October 30, 2006. On December 10, 2006, Deni visited the Kuykendall site for the first time. Shortly thereafter she complied with the specific Letter Agreement requirement of filing a “Work Plan for Assessing Kuykendall Ruins as Chichilticale.” This effectively began her contribution to the program.

The 2006 – 2007 season produced spectacular results. At the time of this posting, we have a total of forty-one significant metal artifacts recovered from an area at least one mile in length and a half-mile wide. We are confident that nine of these are from the Coronado Expedition. All but six of the remaining metal artifacts are highly likely to be from the Expedition.

We tentatively conclude that we may have as many as thirty-five metal artifacts from the Coronado Expedition. A number of these artifacts are being chemically analyzed for purposes of determination of source and for presence of datable material.

Our team also discovered non-metal material that appears to be that described by some members of the Expedition.

During our second season at Kuykendall Ruins we also discovered archaeological features that we believe are associated with the Coronado Expedition. Material from several of these features has been sent to a laboratory for dating.

On June 14, 2007, in Albuquerque, Nugent Brasher formally presented the exploration program, displayed the artifacts, and revealed future exploration plans to an audience including Dr. Carroll Riley and his wife Brent, Dr. Richard Flint and his wife Shirley, and Dr. Durwood Ball, editor of the New Mexico Historical Review. During this presentation, the parties discussed the need for an additional publication. Dr. Ball suggested that such publication be targeted for the Fall 2008 or Winter 2009 issue of the New Mexico Historical Review, the issue to include pieces by both exploration geologist Nugent Brasher and archaeologist Deni Seymour.