Petrified Forest National Park Service

Giant petrified logs at the Petrified Forest National Park.

Archaeologists checking out new parts of Petrified Forest National Park have made a pretty big find — a large basket-maker site.

Park Archaeologist Bill Reitze said this is the second such village found in two years. He said usually they have one or two structures each, these have upward of 50 to 75.

"These patterns, combined with other patterns throughout the region, have the potential to really show us more about how people kind of transitioned from being more nomadic groups to actually becoming more sedentary, and investing in landscapes and building houses and staying in one place. It also shows us how people might be starting to rely more and more on agriculture, which happens during this time period, as well," Reitze said.

Reitze said scientists can also find out about the artifacts people living there used since the sites have some of the earliest ceramics on the Colorado Plateau. And he doesn’t expect this find to be the last.

"The archaeological density, so the number of sites out there, is much, much higher than we anticipated," Reitze said. "So I assume that we’re gonna continue to find a lot of new archaeology and be able to answer a lot of new questions, as the park continues to work out there."

Reitze said archaeologists will keep inventorying the parks’ new land. Congress in 2004 authorized the park to nearly double in size. Reitze said last year, the park service opened up about 14,000 acres of new land to the public.