The Ancient Southwest: Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, and Mesa Verde. Revised edition.

By David E. Stuart

Over twenty-five years ago, David Stuart began writing award-winning newspaper articles on regional archaeology that appealed to general readers. These columns shared interesting, and usually little-known, facts and stories about the ancient people and places of the Southwest.

By 1985, Stuart had penned enough columns to fill a book, Glimpses of the Ancient Southwest, which has been unavailable for years. Now he has rewritten most of his original articles to include recently discovered information about Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, and Mesa Verde.

Stuart's unusual perspective focuses on both the past and the present: "Want to know why gasoline now costs $4.00 a gallon, and is headed higher, yet we have no instant solution? Chacoan, Roman, even Egyptian archaeology all provide elemental answers." The Ancient Southwest shares those with us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Release date: Feb 25, 2010
• ISBN: 9780826346391

David E. Stuart

David E. Stuart, senior scholar and interim president at the School for Advanced Research, is also the author of The Ancient Southwest: Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, and Mesa Verde and Pueblo Peoples on the Pajarito Plateau: Archaeology and Efficiency, both available from the University of New Mexico Press.

Book preview

THE ANCIENT SOUTHWEST

Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde, 2008.

Photograph by Lisa S. Pacheco.

THE

ANCIENT

SOUTHWEST

Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, and Mesa Verde

DAVID E. STUART

ISBN for this digital edition: 978-0-8263-4639-1

© 2009 by David E. Stuart

All rights reserved. Published 2009

Printed in the United States of America

14   13   12   11   10   09         1   2   3   4   5   6

Large portions of this book were previously published in

Glimpses of the Ancient Southwest by Ancient City Press.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PRINTED EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Stuart, David E.

The ancient Southwest: Chaco Canyon, Bandelier,

and Mesa Verde / David E. Stuart.

p. cm.

Rev. ed. of: Glimpses of the ancient Southwest. Santa Fe, N.M. : Ancient City Press, © 1985.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-8263-4638-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Indians of North America—New Mexico—Antiquities.

2. Pueblo Indians—Antiquities.

3. New Mexico—Antiquities.

I. Stuart, David E. Glimpses of the ancient Southwest.

II. Title.

E78.N65S846 2009

978.9’01—dc22

2008051126

For

Troy and Trace Morgan

Fig. 1: Three Corn Ruin, a Navajo and Pueblo ruin of the early eighteenth century. Drawing by Scott Andrae.

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Walking West: July 1976—A Day’s Work in Southwestern Archaeology

PART I: A LAND RICH IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE

Chapter 1: 32,000 Crown Jewels

Chapter 2: Albuquerque: The City Ancient

Chapter 3: Ground Zero: Indian Hill Pueblo

PART II: CLASSIC HUNTING SOCIETY

Chapter 4: Sapello

Chapter 5: Recent Paleo-Indian Finds Tell New Story

Chapter 6: The Folsom Site: A World-Class Discovery

Chapter 7: Folsom Hunters: Nerve, Skill, and High-Tech

Chapter 8: Peach Springs—Navajo Nation

PART III: TWILIGHT OF HUNTING SOCIETY AND THE

   DAWN OF AGRICULTURE

Chapter 9:   Twilight of Classic Hunting Society

Chapter 10: Waiting for Sundown

Chapter 11: Bat Cave Once Held Record on Most Ancient Corn

Chapter 12: Gila Wilderness: Home of New Mexico’s First Prehistoric Villages

PART IV: CHACO AND MIMBRES: HEYDAY OF THE

   ANCIENT SOUTHWEST

Chapter 13: The Chaco Anasazi Era

Chapter 14: The Beginnings of Mimbres Archaeology: Silver City Takes on the Eastern Academic Establishment

Chapter 15: Mogollon and Jornada-Mogollon: Another Archaeological Frontier

Chapter 16: Classic Mimbres Pottery Is Found in Surprising Places

Chapter 17: Once It Was Law East of the Pecos!

PART V: AFTER THE FALL OF CHACO AND MIMBRES

  SOCIETY

Chapter 18: Hard Times in the Highlands: After the Fall of Chaco and Mimbres Society

Chapter 19: Lonely La Bajada Mesa Was Once a Garden Spot

Chapter 20: Site 616, Mariana Mesa

Chapter 21: Before the Apache Came to Apache Creek

Chapter 22: Cliff Palaces and Kivas: From Mesa Verde to Bandelier

Chapter 23: The Riverine Period: Roots of Modern Pueblo Society

Epilogue

About the Author

Index

PREFACE

Twenty-seven years ago I was busy putting the finishing touches on another book, Prehistoric New Mexico, written with my friend, Rory Gauthier. Two editions and many reprints of that work have already been well received by the scholarly community, both as a technical reference and as a textbook. In fact, so many years have now passed that it is both outdated and referred to as a classic. In spite of that, unlike this present book of essays, Prehistoric New Mexico brought its authors surprisingly little joy. Let me explain.

The Prehistoric New Mexico project was long, very technical, and politically delicate. Bureaucrats were involved, too many of them every bit as authoritarian and tedious as those portrayed in the most outrageous Hollywood comedy sketches. Worse yet, Rory and I had uncovered a remarkably fresh and exciting picture of Southwestern archaeology, hidden for many years in the thousands of field data forms tucked away in dozens of institutional steel file drawers. But it was the politics of academics and of our project that initially fascinated our colleagues—not our discoveries. What frustration!

A year or so after Prehistoric New Mexico’s publication, two friends, Carlos Caraveo and Norman Todd, simultaneously began urging me to write an archaeology article or two for local newspapers. At that time Carlos was circulation manager of the New Mexico Independent and Norman, an attorney by vocation, also wrote a political column for the Silver City Enterprise.

In the 1880s, Adolph Bandelier, the legendary founder of Southwestern archaeology, wrote regularly for the newspapers. In fact, the eastern press provided him an important income for features carrying then-exotic datelines like Santa Fe, Canyon de los Frijoles, and Pecos, New Mexico Territory. However, in the intervening century, archaeologists turned away from the news-reading public and concentrated on the scholarly press—a narrow but prestigious audience.

In January 1982, after nearly a century of silence, the Silver City Enterprise and the New Mexico Independent again carried newspaper articles written by a professional anthropologist for the general public. Public response was immediate—within a few days both papers asked me how they could regularly carry my column. Tongue-in-cheek, I named it New Mexico’s Heritage and kept on writing, expecting interest to fade. But it did not. For a number of years fourteen papers carried the series, from Raton and Farmington in the north to Las Cruces and Silver City in the south. In 1987 I returned to university life full time and stopped writing New Mexico’s Heritage. I miss it still.

The editors of New Mexico’s newspapers, particularly small town ones, were generally a friendly and progressive lot; therefore, many of the essays in this collection were first written at the special request of one or another local paper. Some wisely lobbied me not to neglect tales about the people and places important to me in my everyday job. So I have written about friends like John Broster and Rory Gauthier, with whom I walked so many long, tiring miles in New Mexico’s back country. I have written about John Beardsley, too, although we have other memories. I have also told you about Frank Broilo, who died far too young.

Articles about the new, emerging picture of New Mexico’s past that Rory and I once so tediously weeded out of dead files are also included. They are as accurate as those I write for textbooks, but they are much more fun to write. I hope they also bring you pleasure. If you enjoy this book, want to know more, or have knowledge to share, write to me through the publisher, or email me at [e-mail].

While I have selected articles as informative as space permits, this collection does not constitute a textbook approach to our region’s past. These essays are interesting vignettes about the Ancient Southwest.

David Stuart

Mannie’s Central Avenue Restaurant

Route 66, Albuquerque

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am a fortunate man—not in riches, but in the richness of my friends and mentors. Most of these essays were first typed by Louise Weishaupt of Albuquerque. Without Louise, my New Mexico’s Heritage newspaper series would never have gotten to editors across the state. Gail Wimberly of Composing Services in Tularosa is special too. She has composed my most important early book projects. I also want to thank Cynthia Stuart, Tracey Morse, Rory Gauthier, Scott Andrae, John Stein, and Leonard Raab for helping me with photographs and artwork. All of the book’s photographs were carefully hand processed by Scott Caraway in Albuquerque. Mary Powell and Marta Weigle, the initial publishers of this work, were both patient and supportive. My current publishers, University of New Mexico Press, if anything, are even more fun to work with: Director Luther Wilson, Acquiring Editor Lisa Pacheco, Managing Editor Maya Allen-Gallegos, and the Press’s talented design team including this edition’s designer, Mina Yamashita, all provide a superb author experience.

Not a few newspaper and magazine editors also took a special, and important, early interest in my work. These included Rick Phillips and Mike Cook, formerly of the Silver City Enterprise, Ellen Syvertson of the Valencia County News Bulletin, David Mullings of the Raton Range, Scott Sandlin then of the Farmington Daily Times (now Albuquerque Journal), the late Mark Acuff of the New Mexico Independent, Reed Eckhardt of the Gallup Independent, James McCaffrey of the Rio Rancho Observer, and Patrick Beckett, publisher of the journal New Mexico Archaeology and History, now founder/owner of the vibrant COAS bookstore in Las Cruces.

I especially want to thank V. B. Barrett Price, former editor of Century Magazine, later editor of New Mexico Magazine, and still a force in regional publishing. Barrett, a first-rate writer himself, takes special pains to encourage and compliment other writers. Without him, several of the finest essays in this volume would not have been written.

And I need to thank Tony Hillerman too. Tony was one of my favorite writers, so I jumped at the chance to take his Persuasive Writing class at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in the spring of 1984. I felt somewhat out of place with all those young journalism students, but I did improve my writing. During class, Tony suggested revisions in a number of these essays. Several pieces are considerably stronger as a result. His death last fall was particularly sad for those of us who he had mentored.

Others helped in important ways. Many friends and regular readers of my articles, both at UNM and around the state, filled out questionnaires about their favorite essays, and then sent them back to me. I weighed this advice heavily and am grateful for their suggestions.

Finally, although not every essay in this book has previously been published, many have appeared in the following publications prior to revision. I want to thank each of them for making my work available to the public: Century Magazine, Southwest Heritage Magazine, New Mexico Archaeology and History, New Mexico Magazine, The Sundial, New Mexico Independent, Sandoval County Times Independent, Silver City Enterprise, Farmington Daily Times, Gallup Independent, Las Vegas Daily Optic, Raton Range, Union County Leader, Valencia County News Bulletin, New Mexico Daily Lobo, Las Cruces Bulletin, Silver City Daily Press, Hobbs Daily News Sun, Lincoln County News, DeBaca County News, Jicarilla Chieftain, Socorro Defensor-Chieftain, and the Rio Rancho Observer, once the home newspaper to the New Mexico’s Heritage series.

INTRODUCTION

Walking West: July 1976—

A Day’s Work in Southwestern Archaeology

We have been walking due west for nearly two and a half hours. Our shadows race before us, the morning sun at our backs. To my right walks John Broster. Years ago, we were classmates in graduate school, worked together, and visited archaeological sites in Mexico.

Now a client is paying us to investigate a hundred-mile-long pipeline right-of-way. The law requires us to locate, record, and identify all archaeological remains. This involves no high technology. We simply walk every foot of it.

So, John and I are still out looking for ancient sites—just two shadows

Reviews for The Ancient Southwest

[helcura_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This collection of newspaper columns was probably pretty interesting as a change from the usual newspaper fare, but collected as a book their weaknesses become all to apparent. This book is best used as a springboard for further research. The columns give a brief introduction to various archeological concepts for the area, but are unsatisfying due to the constraints of the newspaper style.Worth reading if you're looking for a place to get ideas for more in depth exploration