AT EAFB, THEY WORK TO GUARD EVIDENCE OF THE PAST.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - As the Air Force Flight Test Center shapes the aviation of the future, two range-riding archaeologists are working to preserve Edwards Air Force Base's past.

Long before the Air Force began testing aircraft there, the land was home to American Indians and homesteaders, who left behind arrowheads, stone tools, ruins of adobe buildings, and other artifacts.

Archaeologists Matthew Basham and Erica Maier use trucks and ATV off-road vehicles to travel the vast base's remote regions looking for damage by trespassers, illegal dumpers and off-roaders.

``We actually go out and try to find the damage and protect the sites,'' said Basham. ``This is a very pro-active approach.''

Of 3,500 archaeological sites on Edwards, roughly half are prehistoric - some dating back 10,000 years, said base archaeologist Rick Norwood. The other half are the result of white settlements, including remnants of 300 homesteads that used to dot the region.

``Archaeological sites are not a renewable resource,'' Norwood said. ``It's like Humpty Dumpty. You can't put it back together again.''

To an untrained person, some of the sites look unremarkable. The archaeologists, however, can spot the stones that were used as tools or the rock flakings from where arrowheads and tools were made.

``You need people who can recognize an archaeology site and recognize looting,'' Norwood said.

The Edwards range rider program started in December 2002, first as a 90-day trial program.

Since the program's inception, the range riders have recorded 30 sightings or encounters with trespassers; more than 350 incidents of damage done to base boundary fencing; and more than 130 incidents of what they label as new activity, a broad category that includes signs of trespassing, illegal off-road vehicle riding, shooting, vandalism and looting.

The range riders spend four days a week in the field, riding in trucks or on all-terrain vehicles looking for signs of trespassing, such as down fencing or mysterious tracks.

Basham and Maier work for a private firm, CH2M Hill, under contract to the Air Force.

``We see quite a bit of dumping and abandoned vehicles,'' Maier said. ``We see people driving on ATVs and motorcycles.''

The range riders don't confront trespassers. They call base Security Forces.

The range riders often encounter illegal dump sites and have cleaned them up. Once they even dragged away a boat that had been dumped inside the base boundaries.

They also look for natural factors that could threaten a site, such as erosion in areas where brush fires have killed off vegetation.

Norwood got the idea for the riders from an archaeologist at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. In response to looting of sites at that base, they had started a range-rider effort.

In the course of their work, the range riders have come across stories of modern-day life in some of the rubbish. One pile of rubbish showed the evidence of a failed relationship.

``There were wedding pictures,'' Basham said. ``Paperwork about a pregnancy. Divorce papers. There was the whole cycle of a bad relationship.''

They also found an abandoned car once, with a letter from a heartbroken guy wanting to get rid of both his vehicle and his girlfriend, Maier said.

``You get a little glimpse into our community,'' Maier said.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Archaeologists Erica Maier and Matthew Basham are range riders, whose job it is to keep an eye on remote regions of Edwards Air Force Base, looking for damage by trespassers, illegal dumpers and off-roaders.

(2) Matthew Basham and Erica Maier find an old purse in the ruins of a 1930s-era adobe homestead on the grounds of the base.

Jim Skeen/Daily News