TIPS FOR FUTURE TRAVELERS

An exploration into the past

From the Coastal Plain to the High Desert

August 11, 2014

Fig. 1 - Edward Abbey taking notes in Turkey Pen Ruins (Grand Gulch, Utah). Photo by Mark Klett ©

Wilderness is not a luxury

     “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.  A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.” 

Abbey, Edward (1968) 

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

 New York: Random House. 

Ballantine Books edition, 1971, p. 211. 

      My first tip is simple. Leave your electronic devices. Most of the time they will not work anyway. Find a good book. 

Fig. 2 - Abbey's Challenge

      For many years I had read and heard about Edward Abbey, the radical environmentalist.  Finally, I was able to meet him in the surroundings that he was so moved by.  I had completed my 1,600 mile journey from Houston to the “four corners”, stopping at every major archaeological site and natural landmark along the way. A few hours of rest in Durango, Colorado, found me wandering the streets of this old mining town. The mines are long gone, and the town is now the tourist way-station of La Plata Mountains. He had been waiting for me for a long time, patiently, gathering dust in a small corner of the shelf. I needed some good, quiet company for the coming week, and I took him along. It seemed in order, so I could recover some energy and sense after digging all day under the sun, and looking in the dirt for clues about our past in an occasional potsherd. For a week I was going to pretend to be a desert solitaire and lie under the stars.      
    
 Abbey was a controversial writer in controversial times. He was recognized as an advocate of environmental issues, even labeled as an anarchist. Born in 1927 in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, he lived most of his life in the high desert of the four corners.  He worked as a seasonal Park Ranger for the United States National Park Service, as a writer and college professor. In 1956 and 1957, he was assigned by himself custody of Arches National Monument, near Moab, Utah. The area was still not open as a park and was very much in a natural state.  He lived in a tiny house trailer, without water or electricity, and a backyard of 33,000 acres of windswept ancient canyons. Ten years later his experience became “Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness”.

     Desert Solitaire, published in 1968, was Abbey’s fourth book, and first essay. It is a combination of personal introspections, anecdotes about a few people he interacted with, legends and stories of the area, and vivid descriptions of the landscape he explored. The rich narrative of his adventures in the canyons, and especially his rafting down the Colorado River inside the guts of Glen Canyon, are on equal standing as Thoreau’s “Walden; Or Life in the Forest”.

     Desert Solitaire was good company, easy reading, and an invitation to enjoy our natural environment. Take a hike, find a trail and support your local, state and national parks.

Figure 3 -  One of hundreds of natural arches/bridges in the four corners area - Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

       I learned several lessons on this trip to the four corners area. I wish someone had advised me ahead of time of some of the peculiar conditions that the traveler will find.  Flexibility allowed me to make the most of some of them.  Others simply had to be accepted as a fact and live with it.

VISITING THE PUEBLOS
Most of them are actual living communities, where daily lives go through the normal events of any day.  Some are specially designated areas where some may reside permanently, but the site has been elevated to the equivalent of a monument full of restrictions and limitations to the visitor.  Find out as much as you can ahead of time.  Things to look for:  Feast (holiday) days, when the Pueblo may be completely closed to visitors.  Sometimes the Feast may last several consecutive days. Many of the Pueblos allow free movement of visitors, within reason to respect privacy.  Others may be visited only with a guide and following a pre-determined itinerary and route.  There may be scheduled hours during which the Pueblo is open to the public. There may be entrance fees, parking fees, and camera fees. Video is usually not allowed. They even threaten to confiscate your equipment.  Remember: they are in sovereign land. Respect the rules.

HOTELS AND LODGING
If you are planning within a budget, find out if the towns you will be visiting have "high" and "low" season rates.  Some cities seem to have a range of rates that vary 100% between the low season and the high season.  Smaller towns seem unaffected. There is also a very diverse way of adding to the room cost:  city taxes, state taxes, surcharges, fees, parking, and even "donations" that creep into the bills. 20% of these extra charges are not surprising.

THE MONSOON SEASON
A desert is a desert, except when it is not.  It hardly ever rains, but when it does, it comes down with thunderstorms and even hail.  The few inches of rain that fall in the area happen during the monsoon, in August, September and October. Be prepared to be surprised as the weather can change quickly.  Pay attention to the roads.  In the low spots, there are no bridges.  You will see depth markers.  These measure how high the water may get above the road.  If there is water flowing over a road, do not cross it.  What they call a "wash" is a dry river bed that can reach flood state a few minutes after a rain in the vicinity. You do not want to be washed away. If you are hiking in the high mountains, come down below the tree line if a storm approaches. You do not want to be a lightning rod on high ground.

GASOLINE AND SERVICE STATIONS
Check your map.  Do not venture out unless your gas tank is full. On many secondary and rural roads you may go for a hundred miles and not encounter another car. If you are on an unpaved road, be prepared for anything. Make sure your spare tire is inflated properly, that you have some tools, a flashlight, a blanket and lots of water to drink.  If the map says the road is for four wheel drive vehicles, do not venture unless that is what you are driving.

COMMUNICATIONS
Once you are outside the main cities, do not count on any airwave.  Get used to the GPS voice muttering: "lost satellite signal". Your device, Ipad, cell phone and lap top will usually flash "no network available".  This explains the irregularity of this blog while travelling. I could only publish new posts when I landed on a hot spot near civilization.  At a particularly nice and expensive hotel in the mountains that advertised WiFi, the only place where one could have enough signal strength and speed was on a balcony overlooking the plains. Some phone networks seem to work better than others in this area. The most reliable system was Sirius satellite radio.  Bring some quarters.  Your best bet may be an antique pay-phone in a bar.

DEHYDRATION AND HEATSTROKE
To avoid health issues related to the desert climate and the high altitude you must drink about two quarts of water per day.  Carry water with you at all times, and drink small amounts frequently.  Pack your own re-usable containers, chill them, carry them on a small ice-chest.  Avoid bottled water in plastic bottles.  Do not contribute to the pollution. Disposing waste in the communities in the desert is a problem. Do not litter the parks, the ruins, the monuments or the pristine wilderness.  Take a hat, cover your neck, use long sleeves.  Apply sun-blocker with UV protection. Your arm and legs may be getting toasted while you drive.

RADIO
Bring your own music device.  Radio stations are few and far between. Often your only sound will come from a short range Indian reservation station in the local dialect.  At night, when most local radio stations have ended their transmissions, powerful airwaves with "norteno" or "mariachi" music will filter from the southern deserts, alternating with what sounds like evangelical preaching in Spanish. Satellite radio is a good option, or plain silence, which under the stars and in the desert may sound quite different from "city" silence. Listen for the canyons whispering. 

IT IS AN OPPORTUNITY
Your visit to the four corners and all its surrounding natural beauty is an opportunity.  Take it as a cleansing experience, as detox, as a twelve step program to stop "device" dependency.  I had the opportunity to observe a distraught set of parents battle it out with their teenage daughters. The lodging was comfortable, the food delicious, the weather cool and breezy, the view magnificent, elk were roaming by and a few wild horses could be seen in the adjacent fields of mountain hay. Yet the young ones were not happy because their devices did not work. They were completely unaware of their surroundings, opportunities calling them to reconnect to a simpler way of life. 



Key words: Texas 4th-7th grade Social Studies, Native American tribes, habitat and lifezones, cultural adaptation, Anazasi, Ancestral Pueblo, Rio Grande cultures, New Mexico and Colorado tribes, Paleo-Indians, Archaic and Classic Indians of the Southwest, Geography of the Rio Grande, Mesa Verde, Chaco, Taos, Acoma, Indian ruins, archaeological artifacts, teacher resources, Fund for Teachers, Texas.

A PLAN FOR THE FUTURE - CLOVIS

An exploration into the past

From the Coastal Plain to the High Desert

August 8, 2014

THE CLOVIS SITE
A REVOLUTIONARY DISCOVERY

DIGGING FOR CLOVIS IN TEXAS VIDEO

This video from the Gault Site is a great introduction to the archaeology of Texas. Its main findings correspond to the Clovis period, but the site presents a systematic chronology from before Clovis to the present.

     After completing my planned exploration into the past of the ancestral people of the Trans-Pecos area I realized that I needed more time. There are three areas of interest that I could not include because of logistics.  One is the site of the Clovis people, in New Mexico.  It is a major archaeological site that caused a revolution in the accepted thinking about the origin and dates of the early Americans.  After Clovis, a new vision of the past developed that is still in evolution.  I plan to visit this site and its museum in the future.  It relates directly to Texas and its ancient people as the site is a dry river bed that drains into the Brazos River basin.  During the ice ages, and during other times when the climate was not as dry as it is now, this is one of the points where the headwaters of the Brazos begin.  It is New Mexico, but only a few miles from the Texas border and the city of Lubbock. It was a road into the Texas plains.

      The second site is the ancient Puebloan city of Paquime, "Casas Grandes", in the Chihuahua desert, a few miles from the U. S. border.  It is intimately linked to the Chaco period, it is a major site, not only in importance but also in size, and it may the trade link between the people of the four corners region and the highland cultures of Mesoamerica.  This may have been the source of maize and its companion crops of beans and squash.  It may have been where cotton, weaving and pottery came into the present U. S. territory.

      The third site is the lower Pecos basin, site of a multitude of "cave paintings" dating from the very early times of human occupation of the area.  One site is the Seminole Canyon State Park. Early man first visited this area 12,000 years ago, a time when now-extinct species of elephant, camel, bison, and horse roamed the landscape. By 7000 years ago, the region had undergone a climatic change that produced a landscape much like today's. A new culture appeared in this changed environment.  The distribution of this distinct style is limited to a district which includes a portion of the Rio Grande, Pecos, and Devils River. More than 200 pictograph sites are known to contain examples of their style of rock paintings ranging from single paintings to caves containing panels of art hundreds of feet long.

BLACKWATER DRAW

THE CLOVIS SITE

       As the last ice age began to decline about 13,000 years ago some Paleo-Indian cultures began to develop more efficient weapons to kill Pleistocene megafauna and their 'kill sites' left more definitive evidence. The first these Big Game Hunting traditions is referred to as Clovis, named after a site near Clovis , NM, and is dated at around 13,000-11,500 years ago. 

Fig. 3 - Site Logo

Fig. 2 - Entrance to the site
In charge of ENMU

        












           

       Since its discovery, the Blackwater Locality No. 1 Site has been a focal point for scientific investigations by academic institutions and organizations from across the nation. The Carnegie Institute, Smithsonian Institution, Academy of Natural Sciences, National Science Foundation, United States National Museum, National Geographic Society and more than a dozen major universities either have funded or participated in research at Blackwater Draw.

Fig. 4 - A band of hunters following a herd of woolly mammoths

Fig. 5 - The chase

Fig. 6 - The kill

USING ATL-ATL VIDEO

This short video shows the Clovis point attached to an Atl-atl short spear and how to use it.

      The importance of Blackwater Draw was first recognized in 1929 by Ridgely Whiteman of Clovis, New Mexico. The Blackwater Locality No. 1 Site (located within Blackwater Draw near Portales, New Mexico) is one of the most well known and significant sites in North American archaeology. Early investigations at Blackwater Draw recovered evidence of a human occupation in association with Late Pleistocene fauna, including Columbian mammoth, camel, horse, bison, sabertooth cat and dire wolf.

Figure 7 - Lithic samples from Clovis

Fig. 8 - the Atl-atl
Empowering the ancient spear

Fig. 9 - Parts of the Atl-atl

      These Native American hunters used a special spear thrower, called an atlatl, that had a large 6'' + fluted point designed to kill mainly mammoths and mastodons. This technology spread throughout the Americas rather quickly, but was short lived as the climate saw an increase of temperature and decrease in precipitation as the current inter-glacial period increased in effect. These changes brought about a global extinction of many mega fauna or reduction in size as in the case of the American bison.

Fig. - 10 - Throwing the Atl-atl from a safer distance

       The Blackwater Draw Museum first opened to the public in 1969 primarily to display artifacts discovered at the Blackwater Locality No. 1 Site. Artifacts and displays describe and interpret life at the site from Clovis times (over 13,000 years ago) through the recent historic period. This museum, owned by Eastern New Mexico University, is under the direction of Mr. George Crawford of ENMU in Portales.

Fig. 11 - Exhibit at the actual site, artifacts and bones in situ at Clovis

       The site is also famous for its stratigraphic record in the sediment layers giving a unique rain-gauge for the last 13,000 years of cultural sequences. The site is unsurpassed for cultural sequences reaching from earliest New World peoples to the Archaic and Ceramic times. Each level in this sequence contains critically important evidence, representing one of the best sequences of Paleoindian to Archaic deposits. In addition the strata show 2 million years of the Quaternary in the walls of the deep pits.

Fig. 12 - Megafauna bones in situ showing butchering process

Fig. 15 - Archaeologist at work

             The famous multicomponent site's cultural sequence is dated to 13,300 to 13,000 years before present (B.P.) at the lowest level, Clovis. The Folsom level is directly above the Clovis occupation, followed by the Portales Complex (representing cultures with unfluted parallel-flaked projectile points), and then an Archaic level. In "radiocarbon years"-which do not precisely correspond with normal calendar years-the Clovis site is dated from 11,300 to 11,000 radiocarbon years before the present (RCYBP). The Folsom occupation was 10,800 to 10,000 RCYBP, Portales from 9,800 to 8,000 RCYBP, and Archaic from 7,000 to 5,000 RCYBP. These cultural sequences are visible with mammoth and bison bones on display inside the Interpretive Center's building on the south bank at the site.

Fig. 14 - Bones and artifacts mixed in the find

     Due to its tremendous long-term potential for additional research and to public interest, the site was incorporated into the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. More recently, it was declared a National Historic Landmark.

Key words: Texas 4th-7th grade Social Studies, Native American tribes, habitat and life-zones, cultural adaptation, Anasazi, Ancestral Pueblo, Rio Grande cultures, New Mexico and Colorado tribes, Paleo-Indians, Archaic and Classic Indians of the Southwest, Geography of the Rio Grande, Mesa Verde, Chaco, Taos, Acoma, Indian ruins, archaeological artifacts, teacher resources, Fund for Teachers, Texas.

DIGGING IN TEXAS FOR CLOVIS

An exploration into the past

From the Coastal Plain to the High Desert

August 2-3, 2014

CAPULIN VOLCANO-FOLSOM SITE
AND ALIBATES FLINT QUARRIES

      The final leg of the exploration was devoted to two of the oldest sites in the archaeology of the area, and of the continent.  They both have their roots in the Paleo-Indian period and their influence extends to a very large region.  The first one is the site of the FOLSOM find. Formally identified as the White Horse Arroyo, it is the site that gave name to a generic type of tool that was later discovered throughout the continent: the Folsom Points. Although there is not very much at the site itself, its geography is important.  This was the path of the first Americans at the foot of the glaciers.  The second site is a quarry that had been in continuous exploitation for more than 10,000 years.  The tools and weapons made with the characteristic Alibates flint have been found thousands of miles away, and belonging to many different periods of technological development. On an otherwise very uninteresting drive, these sites were a welcome stop.

CAPULIN VOLCANO AND FOLSOM SITE

Fig. 1 - Capulin and another volcano
 from the road

Fig. 2 - Entrance to the park

Fig. 3 - Map with location of Capulin and Folsom sites

FOLSOM MAN VIDEO

Fig. 4 - Panoramic view from the crater towards the plains with several small volcanos

           While the geologic history of Capulin Volcano began well over a million years ago, its involvement in human history has been much more recent. Capulin has traditionally been a crossroads of human activity as diverse people and cultures traversed to and from the Great Plains.

Fig. 5 - View towards volcano plain

     

         Archaeological evidence found at the Folsom Man site, eight miles from Capulin Volcano, confirms that Paleoindians roamed this area in search of Pleistocene Bison as early as ten thousand years ago. Likewise, groups of Native Americans, such as the Jicarilla Apache and the Ute, used this region as hunting grounds until the arrival of the Spanish in 1541. 

Fig.6 - Diorama at Mesa Verde Museum of the Folsom Site

Fig. 8 - Bison Antiquus

Fig. 7 - Folsom point

Fig. 9 - Typical fluted Folsom point

Folsom Site or Wild Horse Arroyo (29CX1), about 8 miles west of Folsom, New Mexico, is the archaeological site that is the type site for the Folsom tradition, a Paleo-Indian cultural sequence dating to between 9000 BC and 8000 BC. The Folsom Site was excavated in 1926 and found to have been a marsh-side kill site or camp where 23 bison had been killed using distinctive tools, known as Folsom points.

Fig. 10 - White Horse Arroyo site - a buffalo trap

    This site is significant because it was the first time that artifacts indisputably made by humans were found directly associated with faunal remains from an extinct form of bison from the Late Pleistocene. The information culled from this site was the first of a set of discoveries that would allow archaeologists to revise their estimations for the time of arrival of Native Americans on the North American continent.

Fig. 11 - The "draw" or "buffalo jump" at the bottom of the ravine

The find was not investigated until four years after its discovery in 1908, but it  would turn the world of archaeology on its head by pushing the presence of man in North America back by at least 5,000 years to 12,000 years before present day.  Among the approximately thirty-two Bison antiquus skeletons were found at least twenty-six spear points.  These points are now known as "Folsom Points", and represent the pinnacle of projectile point technology.

Fig. 12 - One of the Folsom points in situ

The Bison species found at the site are now extinct.  They were fifty percent larger than the modern Bison, which are now often referred to, mistakenly, as Buffalo.  Such an animal would have stood twelve to fifteen feet tall at the shoulder when mature.  Even the modern Bison of today is considered a dangerous animal -- difficult to herd or contain.

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Fig. 13 - At Capulin's crater with Folsom site in the distance

        Based on research of the life styles and methods employed by various ancient peoples in history, archaeologists have generated some basic theories as to what may have occurred at the Folsom Site:

       A band of about 30 prehistoric humans were traversing the area in the fall, most likely headed north to winter in Colorado.  The season was deduced from the fact that yearling animals were among those killed.  They came upon a herd of Bison and proceeded to trap them in an arroyo in preparation for slaughter.  The animals in the rear would have been killed first, trapping the animals in front.  The hunters would most likely have thrust their spears into the animals from the safety of the rim above the arroyo.  It is possible that the spears where thrown, perhaps even with the aid of an atlatl. 

ALIBATES FLINT QUARRY

Fig. 14 - Location of Alibates Flint Quarry

Fig. 15 - The Canadian River
as it passes the quarry site

Alibates Flint Quarries is the only National Monument in the state of Texas, and is an integral part of Lake Meredith National Recreation Area.

  ALIBATES QUARRY VIDEO

       For thousands of years, people came to the red bluffs above the Canadian River for flint, vital to their existence. Demand for the high quality, rainbow-hued flint is reflected in the distribution of Alibates Flint through the Great Plains and beyond. Indians of the Ice Age Clovis and Folsom Cultures used Alibates flint for spear points to hunt the Imperial Mammoth around 10,000 years ago. The flint usually lies just below the surface at ridge level in a layer up to six feet thick. The quarry pits were not very large, between 5 to 25 feet wide and 4 to 7 feet deep. Many of these quarries were exploited by the Antelope Creek people, of the Panhandle culture, between 1200 and 1450. The stone-slabbed, multi-room houses built by the Antelope Creek people have long been of interest to the public and studied by archaeologists.

Fig. 17 - The "pits" of Alibates

Fig. 16 - Arrowheads made from flint

Fig. 18 - Alibates spear point

Fig. 19 - Alibates stone

Alibates flint is an extremely colorful stone with rainbow hues ranging in colors from pale gray and white to pink, maroon, bright red, orange-gold, and purple-blue. The stone has variable patterns including bands of alternating color that give it a striped and marbled pattern. Distinctive for its many colors, the flint comes from a 10-square-mile area around Lake Meredith, Texas but mostly is concentrated on about 60 acres atop a mesa in the heart of the Monument. The quarry pits are found around the mesa.

Fig.20 -  Alibates spearpoint and arrowheads

       Prehistoric peoples would come to the red bluffs above the Canadian River to harvest this multi-colored, highly prized stone that could hold a hard edge and that was in high demand along trading routes throughout North America. Projectile points and other tools made of Alibates stone have been found in sites across the Great Plains, the Southwest, as far north as Montana, and as far east as the Mississippi River.

FLINTKNAPPING VIDEO - LEARN TO MAKE SPEARHEAD

Key words: Texas 4th-7th grade Social Studies, Native American tribes, habitat and lifezones, cultural adaptation, Anazasi, Ancestral Pueblo, Rio Grande cultures, New Mexico and Colorado tribes, Paleo-Indians, Archaic and Classic Indians of the Southwest, Geography of the Rio Grande, Mesa Verde, Chaco, Taos, Acoma, Indian ruins, archaeological artifacts, teacher resources, Fund for Teachers, Texas.

An exploration into the past

From the Coastal Plain to the High Desert

July 31-August 1, 2014

BANDELIER AREA AND PECOS PUEBLO

Fig. 1 - Location Map

     Travelling south along the Rio Grande from the Taos area along the many existing Pueblos now landmarked by casinos and travel stations, lies Bandelier National Monument. This site is easily accessible, and is surrounded by a large protected wilderness area. It is interesting because in the same location can be found examples of several different periods of the development of the Pueblo culture. Across the river, and past the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that rise above Santa Fe, is the ancient site of Pecos Pueblo. This site is of particular interest to Texas as it lies on the banks of the Pecos River, a major route connecting the plains and the southern deserts.

BANDELIER 

AN ANCIENT PUEBLOAN COMMUNITY

Fig. 2 - Entrance to the park

     Bandelier is not one site. It is a large area with hundreds of significant sites, out of which only about fifty have been explored. The area lies at the feet of the Jemez Mountains, themselves the remnants of a giant ancient caldera volcano,  with a crater six miles wide. Drainage from the mountains has cut deep ravines and isolated plateaus. It has also eroded and scarred the sides of the canyons with the appearance of thousands of caves.  Most of the rock is soft "tuff", a compacted pumice like material.

BANDELIER VIDEO

Fig. 3 - An eroded canyon wall.  Notice the erosion cavates. Some look more square that others.  Look for
sections of man made walls on the lower levels.  A unique characteristic of this site is the use of the natural cavates that once enlarged became rooms incorporated into room blocks. 

Fig. 4 - Long House
Room blocks merge into the
natural canyon wall cavates

       After 1100 AD, small groups of Ancestral Pueblo people arrived on the Pajarito Plateau, that includes the present-day Bandelier. They came with skills in farming, tool making, weaving, and pottery making.

   For generations people lived in small, scattered settlements. From AD 1150 to 1325, during the Rio Grande Coalition Period, the population increased. Pueblos [villages] often included up to 40 rooms. For the next 250 years, called the Rio Grande Classic Period, pueblos grew larger. Some exceeded 600 rooms. Ceremonial rooms called Kivas also grew larger, possibly reflecting ritual or social changes.

Fig. 5 - Cavates transformed into large rooms

Fig. 6 - Long House
3rd. level cavates clearly visible

Fig.  7 - Climbing to the upper levels

Fig. 8 - Up to the main Kiva

Fig. 9 - Kiva in an upper alcove dwellling

Fig. 9 - Talus House, a room block on a cliff

      The Ancestral Pueblo people lived here from approximately 1150 CE to 1550 CE. They built homes carved from the volcanic tuff and planted crops in mesatop fields. Corn, beans, and squash were central to their diet, supplemented by native plants and meat from deer, rabbit, and squirrel. Domesticated turkeys were used for both their feathers and meat while dogs assisted in hunting and provided companionship.

Fig. 10 - Tyuonyi Pueblo "Casa Grande" from the cliff

Fig. 11 - Tyuonyi Pueblo in Frijoles Canyon
The narrow fertile valley is permanently irrigated by a small stream.  The complex is a Chaco style Big House

       The Pueblo people left the area in the 1500s, before the Spanish arrived. They settled along the Rio Grande Valley not far from Bandelier. Their descendents live today in nearby pueblos including San Ildefonso and Cochiti.

PECOS PUEBLO - NATIONAL HISTORIC PARK

Fig. 12 - The Pecos River Basin

      Long before Spaniards entered this country, this pueblo village was the juncture of trade between people of the Rio Grande Valley and hunting tribes of the buffalo plains. Its nearly 2,000 inhabitants could marshal 500 fighting men; its frontier location brought both war and trade.

       At trade fairs, Plains tribes-mostly nomadic Apaches-brought slaves, buffalo hides, flint, and shells to trade for pottery, crops, textiles, and turquoise with the river Pueblos. Pecos Indians were middlemen, traders and consumers of the goods and cultures of the very different peo­ple on either side of the mountains. They became economically powerful and practiced in the arts and customs of two worlds.

     

PECOS PUEBLO VIDEO

Fig. 13 - Reconstruction of North Pecos Pueblo

       


 Pecos Indians remained Puebloan in culture -despite cultural blendings- practicing an ancient agricultural tradition borne north from Mexico by the seeds of maize (corn). By the late Pueblo period, the last few centuries before the Spaniards arrived in the Southwest, people in this valley had congregated in multi-storied towns overlooking the streams and fields that nourished their crops. In the 1400s these groups gathered into Pecos pueblo, which became a regional power.

Fig. 14 - Aerial perspective of the Pecos village with
the two Pueblos on the plateau

Fig. 15 - North Pecos Pueblo floor plan

          First to settle here were pre-pueblo people who lived in pit houses along drainages about 800 CE. Around 1100, the first Puebloans began building their rock-and-mud villages in the valley. Two dozen villages rose here over the next two centuries, including one where Pecos pueblo stands today. Sometime in the 14th century the settlement patterns changed dramatically. Within one generation small villages were abandoned and Pecos pueblo grew larger. By 1450 it had become a well-planned frontier fortress five stories high with a population of more than 2,000.

Fig. 16 - Ruins of mission church

Fig. 17 - Mission church at the town of Las Trampas,
near Taos.  Similar to the Pecos mission church

Fig. 18 - Entrance to Kiva on the side of mission church

     



      
          Location, power, and the ability to supply needed goods made Pecos a major trade center on the eastern flank of the Puebloan world. Pecos Indians bartered crops, clothing, and pottery with the Apaches and later the Spaniards and Comanche's for buffalo products, alibates flint for cutting tools, and slaves. These Plains goods were in turn swapped west to other pueblos for pottery, parrot feathers, turquoise, and other items. Trading could go quickly or take weeks. Rings left by tipi's set up for long spells of bartering are still visible in the area. Uneasy relationships between Pueblos and the Plains tribes made hostilities a continual threat. The rock wall circling the pueblo, a relic from trading days, was too low to serve a defensive purpose. It was probably a boundary other tribes were not allowed to cross.
     

Fig. 19 - 20 Entering a Kiva and
Inside Kiva with vent and deflector in view

         


   By the 1780s, disease, Comanche raids, and migration reduced the population of Pecos to fewer than 300. Longstanding internal divisions -those loyal to the Church and things Spanish versus those who clung to the old ways- contributed to this once powerful city-state's decline.

       







     The function of Pecos as a trade center faded as Spanish colonists, now protected from the Comanches by treaties, established new towns to the east. Pecos and the mission seemed almost ghostly when Santa Fe Trail trade began flowing past in 1821. The last survivors left the decaying pueblo and empty mission church in 1838 to join Towa-speaking relatives 80 miles west at Jémez pueblo, where their descendants still live today.  The disappearance of the buffalo and the people of the plains destroyed the economic trade foundation of Pecos. 

Fig. 21 -Inside the main exhibit hall at the site museum and visitor center

Key words: Texas 4th-7th grade Social Studies, Native American tribes, habitat and lifezones, cultural adaptation, Anazasi, Ancestral Pueblo, Rio Grande cultures, New Mexico and Colorado tribes, Paleo-Indians, Archaic and Classic Indians of the Southwest, Geography of the Rio Grande, Mesa Verde, Chaco, Taos, Acoma, Indian ruins, archaeological artifacts, teacher resources, Fund for Teachers, Texas.