Reported by this volume are the excavations of four Virgin Anasazi sites set directly on the Virgin River just downstream from Hurricane, Washington County, Utah. The sites are found to represent the Virgin Pueblo I and Early Pueblo II periods. While relatively small, all show a rather wide variety of features, including a pithouse each, substantial storage facilities, and various "outdoor" and/or light structural elements.
The excavations feature extensive work with architectural detail and internal site sequence. While usable stratigraphy was generally lacking at the sites, opening widely provided opportunities for definitions of and work with a number of surfaces marking occupational events and sequences. Careful attention to detail of site growth and internal sequence further refined the concept of a "core" Virgin site, or an active site portion that changed little in size over time.
Environmental conditions are noted that indicate while capable of reflecting a harsh face, the St. George Basin also shows a wide variety of sometimes abundant resources. Viewed in combination with certain site characteristics there are, then, seen reasons of logic to seriously entertain settlement/occupation/subsistence models that feature less than full-time or permanent sites, and substantial supplementing of agriculture via hunting and gathering.
In view of a fairly recently accumulated corpus of excavation and inventory information of respectable size, the logically appealing models are seen as not providing the best or even proper avenues for approaching the Virgin data from the St. George Basin in general, and the Little Man sites in particular. From studies done for this and related investigations are found virtually no indications that locally abundant native resources were being utilized to any extent; almost no contrasting or obviously supplementary or complementary sites are found reflected in extensive inventories in and around the basin; and the sites themselves - while often small and light to debris accumulation (factors which can be explained by reference to other considerations) - do nonetheless show considerable internal complexity, and have full complements of features thought to indicate permanent occupation. Further, virtually every known Anasazi site in the basin is in a prime agricultural location as reference water and arable land.
Thus, various lines of coordinate evidence have seemed to indicate that views of full -time, year-round occupation and a heavy dependence on agriculture are quite proper and wholly supportable for the Little Man sites, as well as the St. George Basin Virgin Anasazi occupation. Further, these views seem to account for observed phenomena better and more economically than strained and incomplete reference to some of the more elegant and appealing models currently in vogue.