Presidio Santa Cruz de Terrenate, Archaeological Research, 2007-2008

New archaeological work began on the Terrenate presidio in 2008. Santa Cruz de Terrenate (AZ EE:4:11, ASM) is
situated on the San Pedro River in southern Arizona on Bureau of Land Management property. Officially the occupation
of the presidio dates between 1776 and 1780, but some soldiers continued to live there until 1788. The presidio was
made of adobe so the walls are under continual assault from the elements, eroding to the point where eventually there
will be little left. Treasure hunters frequent this site as well, hoping to find something period-specific to place on their
mantles, not understanding that by taking artifacts from the site they have forever truncated the link to genuine
knowledge of the past.

The name "Terrenate" is apparently a hybridization of Spanish and Nahuatl meaning "land the colour of masa" (which
is maize dough; "La palabra Terrenate... constituye un locativo compuesto con vocablos del espa�ol y del idioma
n�huatl, es un t�pico hibridismo que con frecuencia se da en M�xico. De este modo terrenate proviene de la palabra
terreno y del ap�cope n�huatl atexcatl, el cual, a su vez, deriva de las ra�ces atl, agua y textli, masa. As�, terrenate
significa "terreno de color de masa." See http://www.tlaxcala.gob.mx/municipios/terrenate/index.html). The name has
been applied to many settlements as well as another presidio upstream on the San Pedro River in Sonora, Mexico.

Terrenate was established after a wide scale inspection of the frontier wherein it was determined that more presidios
should be established to guard against the menace of hostile indigenous groups. Moreover after 1772 regulations were
put in place that standardized many aspects of presidio construction and operation. Current work examines the ways in
which Terrenate deviates from the official plan and from the regulations. On the remote frontier priorities often differed
from those held in the comforts of political centers.

In the 1990s the BLM made some surface collections related to the development of the interpretive trail. Other limited
collections were made as unique items were found on the surface. Also in the 1990s a systematic surface collection was
made by the University of Arizona under the direction of Jefferson Reid. Examination of this surface collection provides
an idea of the range of variation present at the site. For example, some of the clearly European-introduced wares are
illustrated below. Such items may be indicative of status and gender. Such items are rare on indigenous sites in the
area and some (such as majolica, Chinese porcelain, and green glaze) occur only on the native village site of Guevavi
and on none of the other native sites investigated over the past 25 years (although beads and miscellaneous metal
items have been found).

Also of interest and significance is that there are only two locations on the site, identifiable through this surface
collection, that have the Sobaipuri pottery known as Whetstone Plain. Only one additional location is identifiable from
the whole and reconstructed vessels. Contrary to Di Peso's original analysis, very little of the pottery that he identified
as Whetstone is actually Whetstone Plain. Though he was the first to define this type, his classification was much too
broad to be of typological value. Now that there is greater focus on plainwares it is possible to differentiate Whetstone
from the may other plainwares found on Sobaipuri sites and at Terrenate. A detailed description of this is being
constructed on the Plainware Catalogue page and will soon be published in an article on Whetstone Plain.

Di Peso defined Whetstone at Terrenate and at the site he thought was Gaybanipitea (but which is likely Pitaitutgam).
Examination of what few collections are available at the Amerind Foundation from Terrenate and Pitaitutgam, and
inspection and chronometric dating of sherd samples obtained more recently from Pitaitutgam, it is possible to further
differentiate plainwares from this period. This effort has been aided by intensive examination of the plainware pottery
found on more than 30 Sobaipuri sites along the San Pedro and Santa Cruz rivers--sherds that have been luminescence
dated to the protohistoric and historic periods. The bottom line is that there is a specific type of ceramic with distinct
characteristics that can be defined as Whetstone Plain. This is a subset of the total constillation of plainwares that
people (including Di Peso) have been refering to as Whetstone.

Why is this important? Because Whetstone seems to be a pottery type unique to the Sobaipuri while some of the other
plainwares (that exhibit different surface treatments, paste colors and textures) are seemingly indicative of other groups
and are other types of Sobaipuri and O'odham pottery.

The folded rim is thought to have been introduced to the O'odham and perhaps the Sobaipuri in the 1770s. It is not an
indigenous Sobaipuri trait and does not seem to occur on pots in earier times.

Some vessels referred to as Apache have the folded rim, but one must question if these are actually O'odham vessels
that ended up in Apache contexts. If they are Apache, the presence of this trait suggests that it is not specific to any one
culture group but was a trait introduced late in time and that spread widely. It is possible that it spread to the Apache
from the O'odham as women potters were recruited to their ranks. It is also probable that this was introduced by the
Spanish or was European inspired. Rims with this folded character would facilitate the addition of a cover that could be
tied in place and therefore transported more effectively.

These figures show organic-tempered redwares and plainwares. These images show the black core, which can result
from organic compounds in the paste that turn the paste dark when fired, creating a carbon streak. Yet, not all pottery
with a dark core is organic tempered and not all dark cores are carbon streaks, though archaeologists often confuse this
issue.

These images also show the voids or vugs where organic material has burned out leaving holes and linear indentations
in the surface and paste. For the careful analyst, these voids or vugs must be present to identify organic-tempering.

Sometimes these voids will occur when organic material burns out that was not intentionally added but occurred
naturally in the clay. See a discussion of this in Apache Plain and other Plainwares on Apache Sites.

Red slip on O'odham-made pottery is very distinctive and easy to differentiate. Often plainwares are fired in such a way
that they look red or use clays that are reddish, but in cross-section (not shown) it is possible to see that they are not
slipped. Unfortunately one of the student-originated papers on the pottery of Terrenate did not differentate between
redwares and plainwares. That same study and others like it were similarly ineffective at differentiating Sobaipuri
pottery from that use and made by other groups.

Excavation by strata leaves volunteers uneasy as they are familar with arbitrary and therefore flat levels. But attention
to stratigraphic information provides details on how the room was abandoned, collapsed, and filled. Given this
information, it is possible to differentiate between material on the floor and in the floor fill that relates to structure use
and that which was introduced after the structure was abandoned.

Removal of the upper three strata reveals melted wall adobe throughout much of the units in Room 28. Areas without
this Stratum 4 adobe seem to have been rodent and root disturbed but walls may have collapsed into portions of the
structure that are away from the northeast corner, leaving this area devoid of the thick layer of adobe. This suggests the
Stratum 4 adobe layer is wall melt from the outter wall and the south wall of Room 28, though clearly material has
washed in through the doorway in the north wall and pooled in the lowest, middle portion of the floor.

This reconstructed vessel--found at Terrenate Presidio by Di Peso--has attributes that are transitional beetween the
Whetstone Plain of the 17th and 18th centuries and the Colono wares of the post-1770s period.

Other plainware vessels that Di Peso classed as Whetstone are substantially different and would no longer be considered
Whetstone Plain. Plainware was not the focus of study back then and so pottery with many dissimilar treatments and
materials were classed together by virtue of their dissimilarity to known types. Too few of these unusual plainware
speciments were known at the time to effectively sort them from one another. Now examples are widespread, though still
few in number, probably because some were imported from groups in northern Mexico. Inspection of plainware
assemblages from over 30 Sobaipuri sites on the San Pedro and Santa Cruz that were occupied throughout their term as a
culture group in southern Arizona provides a basis for a revised and narrower description of Whetstone Plain.

Whetstone Plain is the single previously defined pottery type that is indicative of the
Sobaipuri. Sobaipuri Plain is not Sobaipuri, despite its name. Examination of actual vessels
and sherds at the Amerind Foundation indicates that only a limited number of contexts
contained Whetstone Plain pottery. Di Peso had claimed several whole vessels and several
contexts contained this type of pottery but his definition at the time was far too inclusive and
includes pottery with a variety of surface treatments, paste colors and compositions, and so
on. Previous investigators have taken Di Peso's analysis at face value, propogating this
misinformation and contributing to the inability to solve the pottery issue as it relates to
ethnicity, status, and inter-group interaction at Terrenate Presidio.

Is this red-on-brown bowl sherd that rests flat on Stratum 5; shown above a precursor to late Tohono O'odham
red-on-brown wares or is it a prehistoric red-on-brown? Experts will examine this sherd to see if it has slumped into the
fill from the wall content or if it represents an early version of an indigenous decorated vessel potentially using paint
much earlier than has been indicated previously. The paste is sandy, rather than organic-rich, but there are voids where
small amounts of organic material seems to have burned out. The paste is relatively soft and the sherd relatively thick,
as compared to prehistoric wares. This makes it very much like O'odham wares of the 19th and 19th centuries.

Another Master�s thesis incorrectly suggests that organic-tempered pottery is Sobaipuri. This myth has been
perpetuated on a BLM web site that states that candlestick forms are "made of local Sobaipuri Plainware pottery rather
than the usual bronze or iron." While Di Peso made this connection some time ago, it is widely understood and has
been continually checked that organic-tempered pottery does not occur until much later. Sobaipuri pottery made before
this is not at all similar to these later wares that have been attributed by various researchers to either the Tohono
O'odham, groups out of Sonora, or to the Spaniards themselves. Confusion abounds regarding the presence of these
ceramics as researchers question who might have made them. What they are not considering is that native-made wares
are present in southern Arizona from here forward in a variety of non-native contexts because it is at about this time
that non-native populations became high enough and supplies of European goods were low enough (and expensive)
that production of utilitarian wares by local potters served the needs of natives and non-natives alike.
O'odham-produced wares are commonly found on Hispanic and Euro-American sites throughout this area up until the
turn of the century, when new sources began to become available. Not only did vessel forms change to accommodate
the Europeans but so did the production techniques and materials selected.

Organic-tempered pottery does not occur on any site prior to the O'odham Revolt of 1751 and it does not likely occur
until the 1770s. This issue has been discussed in A Syndetic Approach to Identification of the Historic Mission Site of San
Cayetano Del Tumac�cori, Whetstone Plain, and also in Twenty Short Years but suffice it to say that Sobaipuri sites with
termination dates at or before 1751 have no organic-tempered pottery and sites (O'odham, but not specifically
Sobaipuri, and Terrenate) occupied in the 1770s have it. A site that was abandoned by the time Terrenate was
established (Guevavi) has only small amounts of it. This suggests that this new technology was adopted or invented
sometime during this window of about 20 years, as I note in the above-referenced article. These archaeological data
also indicate that organic-tempered pottery was used in small amounts at first and then grew in popularity as time
passed, supersceding the earlier Piman wares, including Whetstone Plain. This may also be the time at which the
folded rim is introduced to the Upper Pima, as it is not a rim form found in the earliest Sobaipuri contexts. The folded
rim has affinities to Spanish-olive-jar rim form and some of the shapes developed at this time also seem to mimic the
olive jar. Such vessels might have been favored because they represented the newest and most fashionable
technology. They may also be particlarly well-suited to transport, and so were selected for in contexts that required
traveled or were produced for transport functions.

...

This is not the only misconception regarding this site. A recent Masters thesis reports on metal artifacts that were collected
over a several year period by a metal detectorist who looted the surrounding area. The thesis incorrectly suggests that the
metal came from Terrenate and it's immediate surrounding area. Years ago when this collection was first accepted by the
BLM I was told that the collection was made from all along the terraces north and south of Terrenate and also from
Terrenate. This is important because there are many Sobaipuri sites in the vicinity from which these artifacts could have
come. These Sobaipuri sites contain historic glass beads and other metal artifacts so it is likely that some of the metal
items were collected from locations other than Terrenate. Moreover this portion of the San Pedro was a key travel route
throughout the historic period, which likely resulted in metal items being deposited into the archaeological record.
Probably most relevant is the fact that a nearby late-nineteenth-century mill site (Contention City) is located in the vicinity,
on both sides of the river. Metal and other artifacts from this occupation are strewn along the banks and terraces.
Moreover, the historic town of Fairbank is nearby, as is a railroad bed, and...the point is, this was a very busy place in the
historic period and without adequate provenience information the metal artifacts have lost most of their value.

Seymour, Deni J., 2007a A Syndetic Approach to Identification of the Historic Mission Site of San Cayetano Del Tumac�cori.
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 11(3):269-296.

Seymour, Deni J., 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.

2008 Whetstone Plain: The Bane of Sobaipuri Archaeology.

2008 Twenty Short Years...

2007 Quiburi: The Soba�puri-O�odham Rancher�a of Kino�s Conception. Under review at ...

Foundations constructed of pink rhyolite stones underlie the three north-south walls along the west side of
the presidio. These are exposed along the east wall of Room 28 where the adobe wall is not as wide as the
foundation and therefore is set back from the foundation edge. This left a low 10-cm-high rhyolite bench
along the east wall that was seemingly covered with adobe. This bench was likely used for storage and the
vessel fragment shown above probably fell off the bench onto the floor, although it is possible that it was
added to the inventory of the room by native visitors following the European abandonment.