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THE ANCESTRAL APACHE IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST |
THE MATERIAL ON THIS PAGE IS COPYRIGHTED AND SHOULD BE APPROPRIATELY CITED (C) 2007, Deni Seymour |
The Apache are known for such famous figures as Geronimo and Cochise and for such events as the Camp Grant Massacre. Yet, the late Apache leaders represent only a portion of the relatively long history of this group in the American Southwest. The most cutting-edge research is using a systematic dating methodology to ascertain the age of sites, and in doing so is showing that ancestors of the Apache (early Athapaskans) were present in southern Arizona and New Mexico by the 1300s, perhaps earlier (see date table below--to be added; also see Despoblado or Athapaskan Heartland download below). Multiple chronometric dates (using annual-species-based radiocarbon and luminescence dating) found in association with Athapaskan rock art (mountain spirit figures), distinctly Athapaskan feature types, and diagnostic flaked stone and pottery on a number of sites provide support for this statement. Innovative methodologies examine the nature of the native assemblage of artifacts (pottery and flaked stone) and housing features so that they may be distinguished from prehistoric groups and from other contemporaneous late prehistoric and historic groups, such as the mobile Jano and Jocome and the farming-based Sobaipuri. The documentary record indicates that at times sizable groups of Apache came together in large hilltop settlements for ceremonies, for social gatherings, and to plan for raids and warfare. At present three of these large hilltop sites are known. One is the Cerro Rojo Site, located in the Hueco Mountains of southern New Mexico. Another that contains uniquely Apache rock art, along with structures and other features, is in the Peloncillo Mountains (AZ CC:12:58, ASM). These differ in fundamental ways from ancestral Apache sites on the Llano Estacado-- the plains of New Mexico and West Texas. The early documentary record also mentions plains groups visiting the Salinas Pueblos, Galisteo Basin Pueblos, Paa-ko Pueblo, and Pecos Pueblo. Evidence of a number of these mobile group sites have been found in each of these areas, including some that are ancestral Apachean and others for which cultural affiliation cannot yet be determined. Some of these have produced dates in the 1200s and 1300s, much like those further west in the mountains, suggesting an early Athapaskan and mobile group presence in both zones. |
Seymour, Deni J. 2002 Conquest and Concealment: After the El Paso Phase on Fort Bliss. Conservation Division, Directorate of Environment, Fort Bliss. Lone Mountain Report 525/528. This document can be obtained by contacting belinda.mollard@us.army.mil. 2003 Protohistoric and Early Historic Temporal Resolution. Conservation Division, Directorate of Environment, Fort Bliss. Lone Mountain Report 560-003. This document can be obtained by contacting belinda.mollard@us.army.mil. 2003 The Cerro Rojo Complex: A Unique Indigenous Assemblage in the El Paso Area and Its Implications For The Early Apache. Proceedings of the XII Jornada Mogollon Conference in 2001. Geo-Marine, El Paso. 2004 A Ranchería in the Gran Apachería: Evidence of Intercultural Interaction at the Cerro Rojo Site. Plains Anthropologist 49(190):153-192. DOWNLOAD 2004 Before the Spanish Chronicles: Early Apache in the Southern Southwest, pp. 120 –142. In "Ancient and Historic Lifeways in North America’s Rocky Mountains." Proceedings of the 2003 Rocky Mountain Anthropological Conference, Estes Park, Colorado, edited by Robert H. Brunswig and William B. Butler. Department of Anthropology, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley. DOWNLOAD 2005 The Implications of Mobility, Reoccupation, and Low Visibility Phenomena for Chronometric Dating. Under review. 2005 Mobile Visitors to The Eastern Frontier Pueblos. Under review. 2007 Sexually Based War Crimes or Structured Conflict Strategies: An Archaeological Example from the American Southwest. In Texas and Points West: Papers in Honor of John A. Hedrick and Carol P. Hedrick, edited by Regge N. Wiseman, Thomas C. O’Laughlin, and Cordelia T. Snow, pp. 117-134. Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico No. 33. Archaeological Society of New Mexico, Albuquerque. 2007 Apache, Spanish, and Protohistoric Archaeology on Fort Bliss. Conservation Division, Directorate of Environment, Fort Bliss. Lone Mountain Report 560-005. With Tim Church 2007 Stranger Sojourners: Spatial Indications of Mobile Group Visiting Protocol. Under review. 2007 An Archaeological Perspective on the Hohokam-Pima Continuum. Old Pueblo Archaeology Bulletin No. 51 (December 2007):1-7. (This discusses the early presence of Athapaskans.) DOWNLOAD 2007 Delicate Diplomacy on a Restless Frontier: Seventeenth-Century Sobaípuri Social and Economic Relations in Northwestern New Spain, Part I. New Mexico Historical Review, Volume 82(4):469-499. 2008 Despoblado or Athapaskan Heartland: A Methodological Perspective on Ancestral Apache Landscape Use in the Safford Area. Chapter 5 in Crossroads of the Southwest: Culture, Ethnicity, and Migration in Arizona's Safford Basin, pp. 121-162, edited by David E. Purcell, Cambridge Scholars Press, New York. DOWNLOAD 2008 A Pledge of Peace: Evidence of the Cochise-Howard Treaty Campsite. Historical Archaeology 42(4):154-179. With George Robertson. DOWNLOAD 2008 Apache Plain and Other Plainwares on Apache Sites in the Southern Southwest. In "Serendipity: Papers in Honor of Frances Joan Mathien," edited by R.N. Wiseman, T.C O'Laughlin, C.T. Snow and C. Travis, pp 163-186. Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico No. 34. Archaeological Society of New Mexico, Albuquerque. DOWNLOAD 2008 Surfing Behind The Wave: A Counterpoint Discussion Relating To “A Ranchería In the Gran Apachería.” Plains Anthropologist 53(206):241-262. 2008 Pre-Differentiation Athapaskans (Proto-Apache) in the 13th and 14th Century Southern Southwest. Chapter in edited volume under preparation. Also paper in the symposium: The Earliest Athapaskans in Southern Southwest: Implications for Migration, organized and chaired by Deni Seymour, Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver. 2008 Delicate Diplomacy on a Restless Frontier: Seventeenth-Century Sobaípuri Social and Economic Relations in Northwestern New Spain, Part II. New Mexico Historical Review, Volume 83, No. 2:171–199. 2009 Evaluating Eyewitness Accounts of Native Peoples along the Coronado Trail from the International Border to Cibola. New Mexico Historical Review 84(3):399-435. DOWNLOAD 2009 Distinctive Places, Suitable Spaces: Conceptualizing Mobile Group Occupational Duration and Landscape Use. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 13(3): 255-281. DOWNLOAD 2009 Nineteenth-Century Apache Wickiups: Historically Documented Models for Archaeological Signatures of the Dwellings of Mobile People. Antiquity 83(319):157-164. DOWNLOAD 2009 Comments On Genetic Data Relating to Athapaskan Migrations: Implications of the Malhi et al. Study for the Apache and Navajo. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 139(3):281-283. DOWNLOAD 2009 The Cerro Rojo Site (LA 37188)--A Large Mountain-Top Ancestral Apache Site in Southern New Mexico. Digital History Project. New Mexico Office of the State Historian. http://www.newmexicohistory.org/ Select: Place, Communities, Click on 'Cerro Rojo' on the map (orange square-dot NE of EL Paso, East of Las Cruces and Dona Ana ). 2009 Manso Tipis and Other Non Sequiturs Relating to the Protohistoric Southwest. Quince: Papers from the 15th Biennial Jornada Mogollon Conference, pp. 107-119, edited by Marc Thompson. El Paso Museum of Archaeology, El Paso. 2010 Cycles Of Renewal, Transportable Assets: Aspects of the Ancestral Apache Housing Landscape. Plains Anthropologist (Spring or Summer issue). 2010 Contextual Incongruities, Statistical Outliers, and Anomalies: Targeting Inconspicuous Occupational Events. American Antiquity 75(1):158–176. 2011 To Go Together: Focal Residential Strategies of the Southernmost Ancestral Apache. With Richard N. Henderson. Chapter in The Apache Presence in the Borderlands of the American Southwest. Book under preparation for University of Arizona Press, edited by David Carmichael. 2011 Introduction to" From the Land of Ever Winter: Athapaskan Migrations From the Subarctic to the American Southwest." Volume editor. Book manuscript under review at University of Utah Press. 2011 "Big Trips" and Historic Apache Movement and Interaction: Models for Early Athapaskan Migrations. Chapter 3 in "From the Land of Ever Winter: Athapaskan Migrations From the Subarctic to the American Southwest." Book manuscript under review at University of Utah Press. 2011 Chapter 14: Isolating a Pre-Differentiation Athapaskan Assemblage in the Southern Southwest: The Cerro Rojo Complex. Chapter 14 in "From the Land of Ever Winter: Athapaskan Migrations From the Subarctic to the American Southwest." Book manuscript under review at University of Utah Press. Geronimo's Wickiup: Mobile Group Hut Signatures. Under review at International Journal of Historical Archaeology. Hospitality and Boundary Maintenance: Mobile Visitors to the Eastern Frontier Pueblos. Under review at American Antiquity. Rethinking Mobility: Differentiating Parameters of Spatial Patterning in Circumstances of High Residential Mobility. Under review at Current Anthropology. Discrediting the Presumed 1762 Sobaipuri Abandonment of the San Pedro Valley and New Corridors of Apache Raiding. Under review, The Journal of Arizona History. |
Articles and monographs specifically on the Ancestral Apache in the southern Southwest: |