Santa Cruz de Terrenate Presidio, Archaeological Research, 2010

Room 138

Room 138 (below) was previously excavated by Di Peso. He did not backfill, as was practice at the time. As a result the walls and floors remained
open to the elements again. Through time these have eroded, as have the surrounding structures, gradually in-filling the room to a relatvely stable
grade. As a result, however, the walls have eroded. In the image shown below the foundation stones can be seen with adobe mortar on top of them
and bricks were then laid on top of that. This lowest brick is eroding and here two are show which are only partially preserved, the rest having
eroded away. In 50 years not even these will remain unless they are stabilized. These walls, the entry way, and the floor are being exposed to see if
Di Peso encountered the same contruction techniques as we are seeing, to document characteristics, and to describe and photo document the
evidence. We are expecting many more details to be revealed that were not apparent when Di Peso dug the room, as he probably did not get all
the way to the floor in some instances. Some of the other structures he dug outside the presidio have proven to be very different than he described
them, as revealed by our current excavations.

We initiate this year's work with the intent of further investigating issues of rank, class, gender, ethnicity, and society at this short-lived presidio. We are attempting to learn
more about this place and its inhabitants from a variety of sources.

John Kessell outlined all of these moves of the Terrenate garrison in his 1966 article The Puzzling Presidio, so this can be used as a source, although he adopted the recently
disproven notion advanced in the 1930s by Bolton and in the 1950s by Di Peso that this presidio is Quiburi or Quiburi Misison. Work specifically on the Sobaipuri has identified
various other candidates for Kino's Quiburi and later Quiburis. There is Sobaipuri material here at Terrenate but it relates to the Sobaipuri settlement of Santa Cruz, seemingly
after they returned to the San Pedro in the first decade of the 1700s after a brief hiatus.

As Gerald points out, the soldiers and familes were installed in the presidio between May 22 and September 13, 1775 (Gerald 1968:17; O'Conor 1952:64-65). Most sourced
indicate that the move did not occur until later in 1775. This warrants further investigation.

Contrary to statements by Griffen (1988:15) Santa Cruz de Terrenate presidio is not on the Santa Cruz River, 65 miles down-river (south) from San Agustin de Tucson. It is on the
San Pedro River. At this time the current Santa Cruz River was referred to as the Santa Maria. Santa Cruz de Terrenate presidio was called Santa Cruz because it was built on
the place where an Indian village had been that was called Santa Cruz. This was the abandoned Sobaipuri settlement of Santa Cruz, sometimes referred to as Santa Cruz de
(of) Quiburi, owing to its presence on the Quiburi River (as the San Pedro river was sometimes called, aka Terrenate River), in the Quiburi Valley, and because of its
subservient position relative to the larger and more politically important Sobapuri settlement of Quiburi.

Di Peso had excavated only five of the 20 rooms comprising the officer's quarters and only one room in the block in the Captains quarters, all of which line the west wall of the
outer defensive wall of the presidio. We are focusing on the northern end of the apartments.

Room 137

The winter session underway has resulted in the exposure of the upper portion of previously unexcavated Room 137 and partial removal of in-filled erosional layers from
Room 138 that was excavated by Di Peso in the late 1940s. These are two of the four rooms occupied by the Lieutenant and his family in the officers' apartments. In the last two
years two other room in this four-room apartment were excavated. No hearth has been found yet, suggesting that it will be in this room.

As in the other two rooms the upper fill represents wash and erosion off the walls and the collapse of walls into the fill. Mostly fine-grained laminea are present sloping off the
walls but occasionally an intact or melted wall segement is visible. We have excavated down to the layer where burned fill is visible. Upcoming sessions will continue to the
floor.

THE MIDDEN OUTSIDE THE EAST WALL AND GATEHOUSE

Sadly the recent heavy rain has kept us from finishing Room 137 so we have shifted over to the midden area. There might be some structure walls under this area so we are
testing to determine if this is the case. Hopefully these have been protected from later activity related to the presidio and also from Di Peso's excavations and leveling
activities so that features will be found underneath.

Many people have commented about how odd it is that the trash was dumped right outside the presidio entrance. Was this used as a dumping area only after it became too
dangerous for residents to venture further from the walls of the presidio to dispose of their trash off the cliff face or in the fields? Using a Civil War model it might be argued
that this trash accumulation resulted from the final cleaning out of the rooms. During the Civil War all unused items that were to be abandoned were apparently buried in pits
so that the enemy could not use them. The final departure from Santa Cruz de Terrenate was planned and orderly so all usable items could have been packed up and
transported south.

Still-usable items found in the officers' apartments and in the midden argue against the meticulous cleaning of rooms to keep items out of the hands of the enemy. The
abundance of metal and unbroken items, such as beads, amulets, crosses, and so on suggest that metal and many other items were not in as short of supply as has been
suggested for this period. The relatively short supply line from Arispe may have functioned quite effectively for some time, perhaps explaining the abundance of discarded
material. Later the documentary record states that the mule trains were prohibited from getting supplies through because of Apache attacks.

The abundance of metal artifacts in this small portion of the midden requires explanation. Is it that there was no blacksmith so that broken items (such as drawer handles)
could not be repaired? Still usable horseshoe nails, lead, crosses, and jewelry are present in rooms and the midden suggesting that lack of functionality was not at issue.
Perhaps the blacksmith was killed. It is possible that when people were killed their possessions were discarded as their apartments were cleaned out, but only relatively
small items were disposed of or perhaps these are all that have survived collection through the ages. On the other hand, many small items may have accidentally ended up in
the trash as floors were swept. Still one has to wonder if perception of status played a role in this phenomenon. The lack of reuse indicates that supplies were easily obtained
or that there was a stigma against reusing items for these status-conscious Spaniards. The showiness and general lack of functionality of certain items, such as the gun stock
decoration, indicates that perception of wealth and taste was key: appearances were everything. Records from New Mexico indicate that the cost of items often far exceeded
income, keeping families in perpetual debt. Importantly, it seems that dressing or setting a table fit for the rank of one's husband or suitable for the rank to which he aspired
was an important factor in the materials consumed by these military households. There seems to be an inverse relationship between the prevalence of hard-to-obtain
(imported) and expensive items and the frequency of their representation in the midden. This suggests that ostentation played a key role in this small community. Similar
patterns occur in colonial period sites where native artifacts sometimes increase in frequency relative to European items as native society was becoming less powerful and
European society was becoming more powerful and disruptive (Rogers 1990:220). Efforts to change or manipulate the reality of power-based relationships seem at the heart of
both of these patterns.

When trash disposal practices are viewed in a historical and cross-cultural perspective the answer seems a bit clearer, reminding us of the pitfalls of constructing narratives
solely on the basis of our personal experience or contexts familiar to us through our own societal ethos. It was not until the nineteenth century that a connection was made
between disease and hygiene. Consequently the problem of disease generation would not have been a factor in determining where trash would be dumped. Moreover, the
offensiveness of the smell might not have been considered, given that waste was frequently discarded in city streets in Europe at this time. It was common in Spanish colonial
and Mexican communities for trash to be scattered around the rancho so that pigs and goats could forage. At the presidio this would have had the added advantage that
livestock would have stayed closer to the presidio walls to forage so that they would be less likely to have been taken by the Apaches.

A dense clay is present the center of the structure (not illustrated) which suggests that water accumulated and stood there. This pooling resulted in the build up
of dense clay with few artifacts. Cultural fill is present mainly around the edges, as was the case in the other rooms. This preservation likely relates in part to
the sloping floors toward the walls and in some instance the presence of benches.

Gravely and course structural debris is in the doorways is consistent with a layer in the fill that seems to be roof collapse (as also seen in other rooms). This
suggests that the roof collapsed, filling in the door ways, probably prohibiting the water in the center of the structure from escaping and so the water stood with
clay in suspension and then gradually evaporated.

A Five-Room Apartment

A surprise entryway noticed a month ago in the north wall of Room 137 has been verfied. This means that this Lieutenant's quarters was a five room apartment.
The small room in the southwest corner of Di Peso's Corral 2 in the map shown above was probably a closet or storage room attached to the four larger rooms.
Di Peso had noticed a break and a small closet in the north wall of Room 138. The problem with the new wall break in Room 137 is that Di Peso already dug the
room to the north and while he found what seems to be a partitioned area, there may have been no brick walls to block off this small area. It therefore may
have had jacal walls or it may have simply been an entryway into the corral with a raised or separated area (distinctive by floor trenches) set apart from the rest
of the corral. Either way, this new wall break/entryway is an important addition to understanding this Lieutenant's quarters.

The burn layer continues through the entryway into the room to the north. The stone foundation runs continuously so there would have be a step up or over to
get between rooms. There are chunks of adobe bricks in the entryway, as there have been in all the entryways. This is because the roof and walls fell into the
rooms and because there were voids in the doorways they likely tumbled into these areas and washed there as the rooms were inundated with rain.