National Park Service White Sands U.S. Department of the Interior

White Sands National Monument Jornada Mogollon

Archaeologists use broken pieces of pottery to identify Jornada Mogollon sites. (NPS Photo)

he people who made pottery, lived in permanent houses, and farmed the Tularosa Basin are known as the TJornada Mogollon, a name given to them by archeologists. Evidence of their prehistoric presence dates back to about 200 C.E. (Common Era), over 1800 years ago. For 1,200 years, the Jornada Mogollon inhabited the Tularosa Basin, but then something changed. By 1350 C.E. the Jornada Mogollon moved away from the Tularosa Basin, leaving behind puddled adobe and broken pottery sherds.

The Jornada Mogollon is the name local resources to make sure they Mogollon hunted: deer, rabbits, archaeologists use to identify the could survive. The most significant and birds. people who lived in the Tularosa technological difference in the Basin after the Archaic period, archaeological record between the We currently know of several which ended almost 2,000 years Archaic to the Jornada Mogollon Jornada Mogollon villages that ago. The Jornada Mogollon was a is the switch from woven fiber existed throughout the Tularosa group of farmers living in houses baskets to clay pottery. Identifying Basin, including two on White in small villages throughout the broken pieces of pottery is one Sands National Monument: Lake southwest. At first, they lived in of the ways archaeologists are Lucero and Huntington Site. pithouses. Pithouses are circular able to identify Jornada Mogollon The sheer number of artifacts houses dug out of the ground and sites. The second technological surrounding these sites suggests framed with wood beams. Later, advancement was the introduction that these were incredibly Jornada Mogollon peoples began of the bow and arrow. Arrows important villages. They are to build square houses using were even lighter and thinner strategically situated along Lake adobe mud to construct walls. than spears from the Paleoindian Lucero’s shoreline and the Alkali Being a farmer in the Tularosa and Archaic periods. Bows Flat. This would position them Basin desert must have been could propel these arrows with to be near fresh water, as water hard. There was little rainfall to greater accuracy and speed over flows down from the San Andres rely on and the desert sun was long distances. Speed, distance, Mountains especially during heavy harsh. The Jornada Mogollon in and accuracy are especially rainfall. This area is also near the Tularosa Basin farmed, but important in relationship to the the salt and gypsum deposits left they still had to hunt and gather primary game animals the Jornada behind from Lake Otero. Salt is an

Revised 11_29_16 incredibly important mineral for a faced the same types of issues the large dunefields formed, the healthy diet. It can also be used as as we do today causing them ways humans interact with that a preservative to keep foods from to be creative and use all of the landscape has changed quite spoiling. There is some evidence resources around them. They built dramatically. Today, visitors to that the rich gypsum dunefield homes to protect themselves from the monument enjoy the sands was used as a source of plaster for the elements. The thick, adobe as a recreation area, perfect for the walls of adobe houses, much walls were particularly helpful as sledding, hiking, and building sand like gypsum sheet rock is used to insulation against the heat and castles. However, 2,000 years ago construct houses across the United cold. The salt around them helped people traveled this expansive States today. In addition, the large, to keep meat fresh and their bodies landscape to harvest plants and gypsum crystals like those found at healthy. Their creativeness is seen hunt animals, collect salt and Lake Lucero were used as window even in their painted pottery, water, and possibly to process panes in some Pueblo villages in which they sometimes traded for gypsum plaster. Approximately the Tularosa Basin and northern beautiful shell and turquoise beads 600 to 700 years ago, the Jornada New Mexico. to wear as jewelry. Mogollon moved out of their villages in the Tularosa Basin, Can you imagine a life before While the landscape of White perhaps in response to poor crop modern conveniences, like Sands National Monument has yields or insufficient rain, and they refrigerators and air conditioning? not changed significantly since did not return. The Jornada Mogollon people

The Jornada Mogollon, who farmed the Tularosa Basin for thousands of years, made distinctive rock art.