Museum of New Mexico Office of Archaeological Studies
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MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO OFFICE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES OVERVIEW AND SYNTHESIS OF THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE JmEZ PROVINCE, NEW MEXICO by MICHAEL L. ELLIOTT PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR JEMF,Z MOUNTAINS RESEARCH CENTER ARCHAEOLOGY NOTES 5 1 SANTA FE 1986 NEW MEXICO TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments ................................................... iv CHAPTER 1 . INTRODUCTION ......................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 . THE ENVIRONMENT ...................................... 3 CHAPTER 3 . PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT IN THE JEMEZAREA ..................................................... 7 CHAPTER4.ARTICLES ............................................. 35 CHAPTER 5 . LARGE PUEBLO SITES IN THE JEMEZ PROVINCE ................ 175 CHAPTER 6 . CONTEMPORARY OVERVIEW OF THE JEMEZ PROVINCE ........... 183 REFERENCESCITED .............................................. 201 List of Figures 1. Map of the Jdmez Province ........................................... 2 2 . Map of potential natural vegetation in the Jkmez Province ........................ 4 3 . Sketch map of Amoxiumqua showing excavated areas .......................... 12 4. Sketch of room features at Amoxiumqua ...........: ...................... 13 5 . Sketch map of Kwastiyukwa showing excavated areas .......................... 15 6 . Map of Unshagi showing excavated areas .................................. 18 7 . Map of typical Gallina sites showing floor features ............................ 19 8 . Map of the Nanishagi excavations ....................................... 22 9. Plan map of JBmez Cave ............................................ 25 10 . Schematic diagram of great kiva sites ................................... 176 11. Schematic diagram of plaza sites ...................................... 177 12 . Schematic diagram of Patokwa ....................................... 180 List of Tables 1 . Great kiva sites in the Jdmez Province ................................... 178 2 . Plaza sites in the Jemez Province ...................................... 179 3 . The mission pueblo sites of Giusewa and Patokwa ........................... 181 4 . Diagnostic ceramic assemblages for the Jdmez Province ........................ 185 5 . Classic Period ceramic phases and corresponding Jemez Black-on-white ceramic attributes in the Jdmez Province ....................................... 187 6 . Seventeenth-century mission names and locations in the Jkmez Province .............. 190 7 . Tree-ring dates from Pueblo sites ...................................... 196 ... I11 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of several individuals who contributed to this project. First, thanks go to Dr. John Ware, former director of the Laboratory of Anthropology, for his perseverence in the pursuit of funding for me to write this volume. Thanks also go to Regge Wisernan and Curt Schaafsrna for their participation in the preliminary planning stages of this project. Finally, thanksmust go to my wifeRosemary for her patience and understanding of my obsession with the Jdmez area. We had hopes this project might get the Jdmez out of my system, but instead I find it has enthused me even more. Sorry, dear! Michael L. Elliott Albuquerque, New Mexico September 30, 1986 iv CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this volume isto present a synthesis of past archaeological, historic, and ethnographic investigations in what is called the J6mez Province. The term "Jdmez Province" has both an old and a new connotation. The first Spanish explorers into New Mexico classified groups of Pueblo Indians by what they called themselves, and by what language they spoke. The Jdmez peoples' self-designation, Hemish, came to be applied to the people, their language, and the area of land they control14 orused. The term J6mez Province, as used by the Spanish, meant all the area in use by the JCmez Indians. Archaeologists in the 1930s (for example, Reiter [1938]) later adopted this term to describe an area subsumingarchaeological remains thought to correspond to the protohistoric JBmez people's domain. More recently, archaeologists have begun to use the term province to describe areas of similar archaeological remains, whetherprehistoric, protohistoric, or historic. Ruppk (1953) used the terminology "Acoma Culture Province" to describe a roughlyhexagonal 10,OOO square kilometer area around Acoma Pueblo. Plog (1979: 121) defined a province as ''an area in which artifactual remains were sufficiently similar to suggest considerable exchange and interaction but not a singular organizational entity such as a tribe." As we shall see later, not all the cultural remains in the JBmez Province can be attributed to the Jemez people or tribe. The use of J6mez Province is appropriate for the way the term province is now used, as well as for the way the Spanish and earlier archaeologists used it. For purposes of this report, the boundaries of the Jkmez Province have been arbitrarily defined by the distribution of architecturalhabitation sites exhibiting high frequencies of Jemez Black-on-white ceramics. This area doesnot include certain sustaining areas that were undoubtedly utilized by the protohistoric JBmez people. Traditional boundaries of the Jdmez Province, such as those presented to the Indian Land Claims Commission (Ellis 1956; Sando 1982), include a much larger area. Based on archaeological evidence, however, the JCmez were actually living in a much smaller area. The northern boundary of the JBmez Province is the 8,400 feet elevation contour. The eastern boundary is Peralta Canyon. The southern boundary is the lower JCrnez River, about where the Salado River enters it. The western boundary is a line 1 mile west of the Rio Guadalupe. This area is typified by several large ponderosa pine-covered mesas, separated by deep, relatively narrow canyons with permanentdrainages flowing through them (see Fig. 1). " 1 . -~ Figure 1. Map of the Jbrnez Province. 2 CHAPTER 2. THE ENVIRONMENT Geographically, the Jemez Province occupies much of the southern Jdmez Plateau (Bailey et al. 1969). The JBmez Plateau is part of the JBmez Mountain range, a complex volcanic layering of Tertiary and Quaternary age formations (Ross et al. 1961). The central feature of the Jkmez Mountains is the Valle Caldera, a large collapsed volcanic crater about 15 miles in diameter. Volcanismin the area beganin the early to middle Pliocene Epoch, andcontinued intermittently through the Pliocene with successive eruptions of basalt, andesite, dacite, quartz latite, and rhyolite. Volcanic activity culminated in the Pleistocene with the eruption of rhyolitic ash flows. The eruptions that formed both the Toledo and then the Valle calderas occurred about 1.4 and 1.1 million years ago, These eruptions deposited a layer of ash that formed the lower Otowi Member and upper Tshirege Member of the Bandelier Tuff Formation. These eruptions covered an area of up to 400 square miles with ash, which has formed as much as 1,OOO vertical feet of tuff. It has been estimated that some 50 cubic miles of ash erupted from these episodes (Ross et ai. 1961). Soils in the area are deepest in the lower elevations where sedimentary rocks have been exposed for long periods. Those found on the tuff deposits have undergone highly variable degrees of formation. Soils forming in material derived from limestone, tuff, pumice, or basalt are generally said to be the most fertile in the area (Gas and Price 1980:38). The principal drainage systems in the area include the Jbmez River, Guadalupe River, Rio Cebolla, Rio Las Vacas, East Fork, San Antonio River, and Vallecitos Creek. Numerous hot, warm, and cold springs are found in the area. The average annual precipitation varies from about 10 inches at the lower, warmer end to about 25 inches at the higher, wetter end, About half the precipitation occurs in the form of intense summer thunderstorms. Snowfall is usually negligible at the lower elevations, butcan range ashigh as 5 feet in the mountains.Mean annual temperatures range from about 35 degrees F in the mountains to about 50 degrees F in the southern end. Frost-free seasons range from about 110 days in the mountains to about 190 days in the south annually (Cass and Price 1980:M). Several plant communities based on the idea of potential natural vegetation(i.e., plant species that would grow in an area without the effects of man) have been definedfor the Jkmez Province (Fig. 2) by Forest Service ecologists (Gass and Price 198053). The one-seed juniper woodland is typified by one-seed juniper. Common associated plant species include fringed sage, broom snakeweed, cholla, pingue, blue grama, andwestern wheatgrass. The pinyonpine-one seed juniper woodland is typified by pinyon pine and one-seed juniper. Common associated plant species include broom snakeweed, mountain mahogany, Indian paintbrush, pingue, yucca, blue grama, and western wheatgrass. The pinyon pine-one seedjuniper-Rio Grande cottonwood-willow P woodland occurs exclusively in alluvial positions associatedwith perennial streams, This association is similar to the pinyon pine-one seedjuniper woodland with the addition of riparian species. The pinyon pine-one seed juniper-big sage woodland is typified by the addition of big sage to the pinyon and juniper. Sage typically will grow after the removal of the pinyon and juniper. Pollen analysis of samples from two fieldhouse sites in Cebollita Canyon indicated that sage was relatively more common during the occupation of the sites than today (Scott 1986:94).