The Prehistory of Texas

7. Prehistory of the Jornada Mogollon and Eastern Trans-Pecos Regions of West Texas

G&S Typesetters PDF proof 205 7 ▲▲▲ ▲▲▲ Prehistory of the Jornada Mogollon and Eastern Trans-Pecos Regions of West Texas Myles R. Miller and Nancy A. Kenmotsu The Trans-Pecos region of Texas extends from El Paso on the west to the Pecos River on the east, with the Rio Grande defining its southern boundary and New Mexico its northern. Included within this region are El Paso, Hudspeth, Culberson, Brewster, Presidio, Jeff Davis, Terrell, Pecos, and Reeves Counties (Fig. 7.1). Part of the greater Southwest, part of the Southern Plains, yet mostly in and of itself , the Trans-Pecos region represents an important transitional point between several geographic and cultural regions. Archeological sites ranging in age from Paleoindian to Historic are well represented , and among these are site types ranging from lithic scatters and isolated hearths to rockshelters, pueblos, and Spanish missions. In this chapter, we offer an outline of prehistoric human adaptation to this vast and highly variable region. For much of the twentieth century archeological research in the Trans-Pecos lagged behind that of many other regions of Texas and the Southwest. Due to the region’s remoteness and the prevalence of nonarchitectural hunter-gatherer sites, its prehistory was viewed as peripheral to developments in better known and more archeologically visible culture areas. Despite this past neglect, the Trans-Pecos is proving to be an extremely fertile region for archeological inquiry, and its archeological resources offer an important and accessible data base for several topics of current archeological relevance. These topics include, to list but a few of the major ones, (a) the nature of hunter-gatherer mobility and organization in a semiarid environment characterized by spatially and temporally variable plant and animal resources, (b) the ecological and social aspects underlying a high degree of settlement mobility among horticultural and agricultural groups in the region, and (c) causal factors leading to the adoption of agriculture in the Southwest. Archeologists working in the region have also made several fundamental contributions to studies of prehistoric landscape use and landscape (or “nonsite”) archeology (Burgett 1994; Camilli and Ebert 1992; Camilli et al. 1988; Doleman et al. 1992; Mauldin 1995; O’Leary 1987) and how artifact and site distributions are conditioned by geomorphological factors in active eolian environments (Anschuetz et al. 1990; Doleman et al. 1991; Mauldin et al. 1998; M. Miller 1988; Schutt 1992; Seaman et al. 1988). As the effects of scale on archeological interpretation achieve wider recognition, the prehistory of the Trans-Pecos has great importance in explicating relationships between long-term change in adaptive systems and panregional social and economic systems. As archeologists gain a broader appreciation of the synchrony of developments across the southern Southwest and adjoining regions, it has become increasingly evident that events in Casas Grandes, the Mogollon, Chupadera Mesa, or southeast New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle cannot be completely understood without reference to contemporary developments in adjacent regions, including the Trans-Pecos (see Boyd et al. 1997; Creel 2000; Kenmotsu 1994; Mallouf 1990; M. Miller et al. 1997; Rautman 1993; Spielmann 1983, 1991a, 1991b; Wiseman 1988). Moreover, such processes may be examined over an extended time frame in the Trans-Pecos because of the presence of numerous Spanish Colonial period Native American and European settlements, several of which were continuously occupied from late prehistoric through historic times. Archeological investigations have been conducted throughout the Trans-Pecos since the early part of the twentieth century , and several syntheses and overviews of regional prehistory have been produced since the middle of the twentieth century. In 1948, Donald Lehmer reported the results of several archeological investigations in south-central New Mexico and the western Trans-Pecos that ultimately led to his seminal definition of the Jornada Branch of the Mogollon. Meanwhile , J. Charles Kelley, in collaboration with Lehmer and T. N. Campbell, undertook the first professional and systematic investigations in the eastern Trans-Pecos, the results of which established a cultural historical sequence and descriptions of material culture for this region (J. C. Kel07 -A2946 4/13/04 12:04 PM Page 205 G&S Typesetters PDF proof 206 / DESERT ARCHEOLOGY OF WESTERN TEXAS Fig. 7.1. Counties of the Texas Trans-Pecos region. ley 1939, 1949; J. C. Kelley et al. 1940). After this brief period of activity, interest in this part of the southern Southwest faded as archeologists devoted their attention to the more visually appealing Mogollon , Hohokam, and Casas Grandes Culture areas. Lehmer reviewed the status of Trans-Pecos archeology in a 1958 article...