Chapter IV: Preface: To Third Edition (3)

The delicate balance between land and sea swung upward at the end of San Andres time as these late Permian seas retreated to southern New Mexico. The deep Delaware basin was the only persistent marine body of water. It was rimmed by magnificent towering barrier reefs, the Goat Seep and Capitan reefs that now are host to Carlsbad Caverns. These reefs were similar to the present-day Great Barrier Reef of Australia, except that the Capitan and Goat Seep reefs surrounded an inland sea whereas the Australian reef borders a continent. The Capitan reef is about 400 miles long, and other than oceanward channels cut through to the south, completely encircled the 10,000-square-mile Delaware basin. At its heyday, the Capitan reef was barely awash, and teeming with life, in contrast to the silent, stagnant deeps of the Delaware basin which were about 2000 feet below sea level only a few miles away from the barrier reef. On the steep slope into the basin, huge slump blocks of fossiliferous reef limestone slid, mingling with fossil-hash sand. These “flank” beds dip steeply from the massive reef core to interfinger with the black sandy limestones of the basin.

The Delaware basin was a marine feature throughout Late Paleozoic time; its northwestern border is now marked by the southeast-trending front of the Guadalupe Mountains southeast of Carlsbad; its north edge was east-northeast of Carlsbad, and it extended southward into West Texas.

Shallow “shelf” seas reached irregularly and intermittently northward and northwestward from the Capitan reef and mingled with low islands throughout all but southeastern New Mexico. Landward, away from the Delaware basin, the rocks change from massive, thick, light-gray limestones of the reefs into thin units of thin-bedded dolomite, then abruptly into alternating beds of gypsum and redbeds, the Artesia Group of rocks, and finally, marking the distant shorelines, into thin units of red mudstone and red sandstone, the Bernal Formation. Evaporation of sea water was excessive, and average temperatures high; the climate varied from semiarid in northwestern New Mexico to subtropical in the Delaware basin area—a contrast and a similarity to today’s climate.

Latest Permian time saw the dramatic end of the Paleozoic Era. Most of New Mexico was uplifted above sea level, with only the Delaware basin remaining as a land-locked sea, much like the Caspian Sea today, but with channels open periodically southward to the ocean. The rocks of this waning part of the Permian are called the _Ochoan Series_; they show an abrupt and striking change from the underlying Carlsbad reef limestones and associated black basin-filling limestones up into the laminated gypsum-anhydrite of the basal Ochoan rocks, the Castile formation. Normal marine conditions ended almost instantaneously. Excess of evaporation lowered the water level of the inland sea; the accumulated brine (concentrated salty sea water) killed the life on and near the Capitan reef, and thick beds of anhydrite were precipitated. The lowest beds of the Ochoan Series, the Castile Anhydrite, and the overlying Salado Salt, mostly filled the deep depression that was the Delaware basin; the upper beds, the Rustler Dolomite and Dewey Lake Redbeds, lap over the edges of the basin and in places rest irregularly upon the Capitan limestone.

These are unusual rocks. The Castile (about 1800 feet thick) is thinly banded, with thicker bands (laminae, thin layers) of light-gray gypsum-anhydrite alternating with thin laminae of dark-brown calcite (fig. 9). This lamination is believed due to annual changes, the brown calcite being precipitated during the summer and the gray anhydrite during the winter. On the surface, the calcium sulfate mineral is gypsum, but at depths of about 600 feet, these laminae are anhydrite. Addition of water to anhydrite has changed it to gypsum wherever ground water penetrated the laminae.

The Salado Salt, about 2000 feet thick, is almost entirely of rock salt (halite), with important interbeds of potassium-rich minerals—red sylvite, gray langbeinite, brownish bitter-tasting carnallite, and pale-red polyhalite. As all these salts are highly soluble in water, the Salado Salt nowhere “crops out” at the surface. East of Carlsbad, however, the potash-rich beds are mined underground, and supply about ninety per cent of the United States’ production—used chiefly as fertilizer.

The arid period of Salado Salt evaporation changed slightly as the dolomites and anhydrites of the Rustler Dolomite were laid down in the last drying moments (geologically speaking) of the Permian. Then as the seas retreated to the south, the fine-grained red sands and silts of the Dewey Lake Redbeds were spread as a thin blanket over the low lands basking under the hot Permian sun. This was a time of dying; whole races of vertebrate and invertebrate animals were wiped out, to be known today only from their fossil remains. As the dim unmarked episode of latest Permian time merged into the Triassic, an inkling of coming life was recorded in the rocks. The amphibians were more modern types, and they gave rise to the most striking of early land animals, the reptiles. This was the beginning of the conquest of the land by the reptiles, which culminated later in the dinosaurs, and was aided by the retreat of shallow seas from the continents, a change survived chiefly by the species adapted to living on land.

MESOZOIC ERA

The Mesozoic Era dawned in New Mexico on extensive plains, except for a northwest-trending range in the extreme north-central part of the state. During this, the early part of the Triassic Period (180 to 230 m.y. ago), sands and muds eroded from New Mexico were carried westward to northeastern Arizona where they now form the Moenkopi Formation, the brilliant reds and purples of the Painted Desert region. Uplands arose in late Triassic time in southwestern New Mexico. Along with mountains in south-central Colorado, these highlands were torn apart by water and wind, and the detritus was swept into sheets of brightly colored sand and shale. These beds are thickest (about 2000 feet) along the New Mexico—Texas line east of Roswell and in west-central New Mexico (near Grants) extending westward into northeastern Arizona. The eastern Triassic rocks are the redbeds of the Dockum Group with the lower Santa Rosa Sandstone and the upper Chinle beds. The northwestern rocks are the Chinle Formation overlain by the redbeds of the Wingate Sandstone.

The Chinle Formation is of special scenic interest as its beds contain the silicified trees so well shown at Petrified Forest National Monument. These varicolored rocks—red, purple, green, and gray—also decorate the Painted Desert area, the wide valley of Rio San Jose east of Laguna, and flank Interstate 40 (U.S. Highway 66) from the Texas line westward almost to Clines Corners. As some beds are weathered “ash” beds, the highlands were sites of volcanoes that spread their dust over much of the Southwest. In contrast to the underlying marine Paleozoic rocks, these Triassic beds were deposited on land by streams and in shallow lakes. Thus the beasts that roamed New Mexico were amphibians—such as the thick-skulled stegocephalians—and reptiles of the crocodilelike clan, the phytosaurs. The silicified trees in the Chinle are mostly primitive pines; some grew to heights of more than 100 feet and measure 7 feet in diameter.

New Mexico was featureless rolling prairie, with scattered low hills in the northwest, during most of Jurassic time (135 to 180 m.y. ago). In the late part of the period, the Sundance-Curtis sea and its shoreline lagoons spread down from the north into northwestern New Mexico. Sand dunes on its southeastern shores consolidated into the cross-bedded Entrada Sandstone; its reddish brown cliffs rim the Rio San Jose Valley near Grants and Gallup. In an extensive lagoon, or salt-water lake that covered most of northwestern and north-central New Mexico, the gypsum and limestone of the Todilto Formation were precipitated; this gypsum is the bed mined near Rosario siding (seen between Albuquerque and Santa Fe) by the Kaiser Gypsum Company, and near San Ysidro on White Mesa by the American Gypsum Company. The Todilto salty basin was overwhelmed by reddish sands and silts of the Summerville Formation, washed chiefly from the south, and by the multicolored sands of the Zuni Sandstone (exposed at El Morro), and then the stream and wind-blown sands and clays of the varicolored Morrison Formation were laid down in northern New Mexico. Petrified wood and bone fragments are abundant in the Morrison beds—along with uranium—but no fossil finds in New Mexico equal those in the Morrison Formation of Dinosaur National Park, Utah.

Much of North America, including southern New Mexico, was land during the Jurassic. In the streams and lakes were many kinds of fishes, amphibians, reptiles, snails, crustaceans, and water bugs; on dry land were hordes of reptiles, small primitive mammals, and ants; in the air were flying reptiles, the earliest known birds, moths, and butterflies. The earth was ruled by the reptiles, with the dinosaurs dominant—some being the most ponderous land animals of all earth history. Such were Stegosaurus and Brachiosaurus, the latter 85 feet long and weighing 50 tons.

The Cretaceous Period (70 to 135 m.y. ago) was one of great contrast in New Mexico. During Early Cretaceous time, most of the central and northern parts of the state were low lands torn by erosion, while thick piles of conglomerate, sandstone, and shale accumulated in depressions in the southwestern corner. Huge volcanoes near Lordsburg added their hot ashes, bombs, and flows to the sedimentary detritus, and thick fossiliferous limestones were laid down in muddy and sandy waters of the sea—the shoreline fluctuated over tens of miles in areas south of Lordsburg, Deming, and El Paso. These Early Cretaceous beds total 20,000 feet in thickness in some areas. In eastern and northeastern New Mexico, in contrast, thin sheets of quartz sand were deposited by streams on the edge of a shallow sea, and black muds in local lagoons.

Rock beds thousands of feet thick were laid down in northern and central New Mexico during Late Cretaceous time, whereas most of the southern part of the state was above sea level and was being eroded by tireless winds and streams. The shorelines made parallel northwest-trending bands across the state. These are now marked by beach sands, some of which are speckled by black minerals, high in rare elements titanium, niobium, and zirconium. Northwestern and central New Mexico was a battleground of the land and sea, with the beaches advancing and retreating fifty or a hundred miles during an instant of geologic time. Stream sands and coal beds lie landward from the beach sands which, in turn, mingle seaward with black limy shales that were flushed into the seas. The lowest of these rocks is the Dakota Sandstone—famous as an artesian aquifer in the High Plains areas of states to the northeast—Colorado, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana. Above is the black Mancos Shale, which in turn is overlain by the Mesaverde Group.

The transitions from coal swamps and stream sands to beach deposits and then into marine black shales is characteristic of the Mesaverde in northwestern and north-central New Mexico. To the northeast, beds of the same age were laid down in an extensive muddy sea that stretched far to the east; the Pierre Shale and Niobrara chalky limestone that underlie the plains northeast of Las Vegas are typical. The cliff-forming sandstones and coal beds near Gallup are part of the Mesaverde Group and rim the entire San Juan Basin. Above are similar rocks such as the Kirtland Shale, Pictured Cliffs Sandstone, and Fruitland Formation that underlie valleys cut in the shales and cliffs carved from the sandstones in the northwest corner of New Mexico near Farmington.

Toward the end of the Cretaceous, the Laramide “revolution” began, and New Mexico along with most of North America emerged from beneath the seas, to be high and dry to the present. The revolution, an extensive upheaval of the earth’s crust, saw uplift of the San Juan Mountains area in southwestern Colorado and large volcanoes spouting fire and ashes nearby. Fragments of the eroded mountains and debris from these andesitic volcanoes were flushed southward by streams and steam to settle as thick piles of mud, sandstone, and conglomerate, the McDermott and Animas formations in the San Juan Basin. The last moment of Cretaceous time, if we could be so precise, was ushered out almost unnoticed—with mountains rising to the north and the andesitic-quartz detritus being laid down to the south in the upper beds of the Animas Formation.

Similarly, mountains arose during Late Cretaceous time in north-central New Mexico and south-central Colorado, about on the site of the present-day Sangre de Cristo range northeast of Taos, and shed erosional gravels and muds into the Raton Basin area. Alluvial fan gravels and sands grade eastward into dark muds and coals laid down in swamps and on floodplains. These rocks now cap the rugged mesas seen northwest of the Santa Fe Railway from Raton southward—the cliff-forming Trinidad Sandstone and the dark siltstones, sandstones, black shales, and coal beds of the Vermejo and Raton formations. The Kaiser Steel Corporation mine near Koehler extracts coal from these beds. Again, the exact end of the Cretaceous is marked only by some obscure boundary between beds, in that area within the Raton Formation.

During the Cretaceous Period, the deciduous trees—such as the oak, maple, poplar, and elm that dominate today’s flora—became common. The covered-seed plants, the angiosperms, are the most notable of the Cretaceous plants, but the development of the modern floras was an antecedent to the great expansion of mammals and birds during the following Cenozoic Era. Reptiles ruled the earth, led by the dinosaurs (fig. 10) and their distinctive group, the horned large-skulled ceratopsians such as Triceratops. The small, hairy, warm-blooded mammals were still insignificant creatures that ran from their huge dinosaur lords, but they ate reptile eggs, and so excelled the sluggish reptiles in mental and physical activity that they adapted swiftly to the changing environments of the Laramide revolution—and became dominant as the pea-brained reptiles were unable to stand the changes.

The shallow seas of the Cretaceous swarmed with invertebrate life; foraminifers (unicellular protozoans) in uncountable billions make up large parts of the chalky limestones. Mollusks, particularly clams like oysters and the heavy ribbed Inoceramus, and complexly sutured cephalopods, the ammonites, as well as the internal-shelled belemnoids (that look like cigars), were most numerous among larger marine animals. Reef builders in southwestern New Mexico were the peculiarly corallike clams, the rudistids. Widespread warm humid climates seem to have prevailed throughout the state during most of the Cretaceous.

LANDSCAPES AND MINERAL RESOURCES

Thus as the Cretaceous seas withdrew from New Mexico, the Cenozoic Era dawned, and never again have marine waters shaped the landscapes. The rocks, Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic, and their ancient movements determine New Mexico’s spectacular landscapes. They tell tales of the endless war between erosion and hard rock, show the deposition of sediments, their uplift, and their eventual destruction. The result is striking scenery—volcanic mountains, as Mount Taylor, Sierra Blanca, Valle Grande—fresh lava flows near Carrizozo and Grants—volcanic necks like Shiprock and Cabezon—White Sands, the work of the wind—El Morro, Enchanted Mesa, Acoma, and badlands near Santa Fe, the result of weathering and erosion—great fault-line escarpments of the Sandia, Manzano, San Andres, and Sacramento mountains—the work of underground waters at Carlsbad Caverns. And man adds his erosive powers—the huge open-pit copper mine at Santa Rita and countless excavations for rock to build homes, to straighten highways.

The sun can be harsh and hot, the rain sparse, the winter nights fierce cold. But within the rocks are natural resources undreamed of by the early Indians, almost untouched by the Spanish, and with potential beyond vision for the future. Water, being scarce, is one of the more important resources. With an average yearly precipitation of only fifteen inches, and more than half of the state receiving less than that average, water is a problem! Farming must depend upon irrigation, the water being drawn from streams or “mined” from underground “pools” where it had been accumulating for centuries.

Forests, game, and fish are lucrative resources somewhat unexpected in a semiarid state; sheep and cattle—in this the stronghold of the cowboy, famous in gunfighter lore—each total more than a million. New Mexico’s 1965 mineral production, valued at $781.9 million, ranked seventh among the states. Principal commodities won from the rocks, in order of value, were oil, potash, natural gas, uranium, copper, sand and gravel, zinc, coal, crushed stone, and perlite. Sizeable quantities of barite, beryl, carbon dioxide, cement, clays, gem stones, gold, gypsum, helium, iron ore, lead, limestone, magnesium compounds, manganese, mica, molybdenum, pumice, salt, silver, sulfur, and vanadium were also mined. The huge open-pit copper mine at Santa Rita, the many uranium mines near Grants, the underground potash mines near Carlsbad, and the thousands of oil and gas wells in the northwestern and southeastern parts of the state are typical of man-made landscape features attributable to mineral exploitation in New Mexico. Numerous old mine dumps, rotting mine shafts, and spooky ghost towns are reminders of past fortunes won and lost.

The rocks, the work of water, wind, and sun, and the not insignificant upheavals by man have shaped New Mexico’s landscapes. Blended with its blue skies, warm sun, and the products of three cultures—Indian, Spanish, and American—the rocks and their movements have made the landscapes a land of enchantment.

Earth wears a mantle rich with lore,
of storied fabric finely spun,
That tells of kingdoms come and gone,
of legions lost and battles won.
No seer no monarch can divine,
the cryptic writings; he alone,
Who humbly speaks the tongue of earth,
can find a story in a stone.

Before Coronado

_by_ Robert H. Weber

The cultural heritage of New Mexico is a rich and colorful one, blending as it does the three separate traditions of Indian, Spanish, and Anglo-American. Of these, the lifeways of the Indian, ancient and modern, are of particular interest to both the visitor and resident. These were the first inhabitants of the New World, whose roots extend back in time many thousands of years before the first European set foot here. People who had adapted themselves to the varied and often harsh environments of desert, plain, valley, canyon, and mountain; who witnessed the disappearance of the large mammals of the Pleistocene Ice Age and concomitant changes in climate and vegetation; the first prospectors and miners seeking flint, obsidian, turquoise, clay, salt, and mineral pigments; early traders exchanging valued minerals and handicrafts for shells of the coastal regions; hunters and farmers, architects and builders, civic and religious leaders, philosophers and critics, skilled craftsmen and artists, explorers and soldiers—all ancient counterparts of those who were to follow.

In 1540, when the train of soldiers in the company of Coronado’s Spanish Expedition entered the unknown lands later called New Mexico, four groups of native Americans were established residents in the area. Along the arable valley of the Rio Grande and its tributaries, and in several outlying areas were the adobe and stone apartment-house villages of the Pueblo Indians, whose livelihood was based largely on agriculture. East of the mountains were scattered bands of Plains Indians, Eastern Apaches, who were nomadic hunters following the herds of buffalo that ranged across the vast grasslands of the High Plains. Western Apaches were dispersed in small bands of hunters and gatherers of wild foods through the mountainous country to the west of the Rio Grande. A related group, the Navajo, augmented the necessities of life gained by hunting and gathering with subordinate agricultural crops in the Plateau region to the northwest.

Early contacts of the _conquistadores_ were largely with the Pueblo Indians, although they had limited knowledge of the Apaches and Navajos in outlying districts. There was little to suggest to the Spanish invaders, except for the ruins of long-abandoned Pueblo villages, that the fragmentary record of thousands of years of human prehistory lay scattered in the dust beneath their feet. Undoubtedly they would have dismissed as utter nonsense any notion that men armed with stone-tipped spears had here slain elephants in a marsh 12,000 years old that now lay buried beneath shifting sands of a desert landscape. Indeed, it was not until the last quarter of the 1800’s that serious attempts were made to decipher the prehistoric traces of the Pueblo Indians, whereas concrete evidence that man had hunted long-extinct Pleistocene big game in America was not discovered until less than forty years ago.

EARLY HUNTERS

The year 1926 was marked by the first of a series of important archeological finds in New Mexico that were eventually to demonstrate that man had occupied this area as much as 11,000 to 12,000 years ago. During this period, Late Pleistocene ice sheets of continental glaciers still blanketed parts of the northern tier of states in the vicinity of the Great Lakes, and elephants (both mammoths and mastodons), horses, camels, giant bison, tapirs, and ground sloths roamed the Southwest. Excavations begun in 1926 near the small town of Folsom, in northeastern New Mexico (fig. 1), disclosed a number of fossil skeletons of a large form of extinct bison, forerunners of the modern bison or buffalo. Among these bones were dart or spear points of distinctive form and workmanship, characterized by broad, shallow flutes or channels on each face (fig. 2). These artifacts, now known as Folsom points, have since been recovered from a number of sites in New Mexico and elsewhere in North America, commonly in association with the remains of extinct bison. Evidently Folsom “Man” (whose skeletal remains have not been discovered) was a nomadic hunter particularly dependent upon the bison for his food supply, much as were the later Plains Indians of historic time. Ages of from 10,000 to 11,000 years have been obtained from charcoal and other organic remains at Folsom camp sites by the radiocarbon method.

Succeeding years have seen an increasing number of valuable archeological discoveries at camp and game-kill sites of Folsom Man and other Early Hunters. Unquestionably, the most important of these sites is the Blackwater Draw locality between Clovis and Portales in extreme eastern New Mexico, where excavations for gravel disclosed a stratified sequence of sediments that were deposited in an ancient pond and spring. Here, too, were the characteristic Folsom points in association with the bones of fossil bison. Below the Folsom layer, still older deposits contained the fossil bones of mammoth, horse, camel, and bison associated with fluted spear points that resembled those from Folsom but were generally larger and less skillfully chipped and fluted. These points, now known as Clovis points, are so commonly found beside the remains of mammoths in a number of sites in the High Plains and the Southwest that their makers are believed to have been adept at hunting these extinct elephants. Radiocarbon dates place Clovis points in a time range of from 11,000 to 12,000 years ago.

In a layer above that containing Folsom points at Blackwater Draw, several varieties of unfluted lanceolate points were found to be associated with the bones of fossil bison. These points have been identified by various specific names such as Plainview, Milnesand, Eden, and Scottsbluff from excavated sites elsewhere in the High Plains region, and probably range in age from 8000 to 10,000 years. Although the giant bison still survived into this level of stratigraphy and time, the elephant, camel, and horse of the Clovis level had disappeared from the area.

Early Hunter Sites
1. Folsom State Monument
2. Sandia Cave
3. San Jon
4. Blackwater Draw
5. Manzano Cave
6. Lucy
7. Milnesand
8. Burnet Cave
Prehistoric Pueblo and Cliff-Dwelling Ruins
9. Aztec Ruins National Monument
10. Chaco Canyon National Monument
11. Puye Cliff Dwellings
12. Bandelier National Monument (Tyuonyi)
13. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
Historic Pueblo Ruins
14. Jemez State Monument
15. Pecos State Monument
16. Coronado State Monument (Kuaua)
17. Paako State Monument
18. Quarai State Monument
19. Abo State Monument
20. Gran Quivira National Monument
Modern Pueblos
21. Taos
22. San Lorenzo (Picurís)
23. San Juan
24. Santa Clara
25. San Ildefonso
26. Nambé
27. Tesuque
28. Cochiti
29. Santo Domingo
30. San Felipe
31. Sandia
32. Santa Ana
33. Zia
34. Jemez
35. Isleta
36. Laguna
37. Acoma
38. Zuni
39. Ojo Caliente
Navajo, Ute, and Apache Reservations
40. Navajo Indian Reservation
41. Ute Mountain Indian Reservation
42. Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation
43. Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation

Modern pueblos
Historic pueblo ruins
Prehistoric pueblo and cliff-dwelling ruins
Early Hunter sites

Another important discovery was made in Sandia Cave northeast of Albuquerque. Below cave deposits containing Folsom points was an earlier type of point among the bones of mammoth, horse, camel, and other large Pleistocene mammals. Now identified as Sandia points, these projectile tips are distinguished by an asymmetric stemmed form with a shoulder on one side. The age of the Sandia points has been a subject of some controversy, but the latest available data from charcoal in Sandia Cave indicates an age of nearly 12,000 years, which is within the accepted range of the Clovis points.

Clovis, Sandia, and Folsom points, together with related stone implements, are at many places enclosed in sediments deposited in or adjacent to ponds, lakes, streams, and wet meadows. These environments indicate a former cool and more humid climate in areas that are now semiarid. The food requirements of many of the large herbivores that lived at this time also suggest more abundant vegetation and surface water than prevails here today. It is not unreasonable, then, to presume that climatic conditions contributing to the advance of continental glaciers in the Great Lakes region, and to valley glaciers in the Rocky Mountains, should have been reflected in lower summer temperatures and higher rainfall in non-glaciated areas. The ultimate extinction of the large Pleistocene mammals and the similar time of disappearance of the hunters who preyed upon them may both be related to the climatic changes that followed the end of the Ice Age in America.

HUNTERS AND GATHERERS

Groups of people dependent upon a different way of life from that of the Early Hunters are known to have occupied much of the present area of New Mexico. Although there is some suggestion of overlap in time of these people with the Early Hunters, they appear to have become prominent during the several thousand warm, dry years following the end of the Pleistocene. Adapted, as they were, to a fuller utilization of the resources of the area through the hunting and trapping of smaller game and an emphasis on the gathering of a wide variety of wild plant foods, these people ranged extensively across the varied terrain of the state. Similar patterns of subsistence and artifacts are known from the Great Basin region west of the Rocky Mountains, where they have been categorized under the term _Desert Culture_. Local manifestations of the Desert Culture in southeastern Arizona, extending eastward into western and southern New Mexico, are identified as the Cochise Culture. Other groups showing similarities with Archaic cultures to the east penetrated the northeastern part of New Mexico at a time when the area was still populated by Pleistocene bison.

Habitation sites of these gatherers are distributed in open situations and in shelter caves. Such sites are commonly marked by milling stones that characterize the preparation of wild foods (fig. 3), hearths, chopping and scraping implements, and stemmed projectile points markedly different from those used by the Early Hunters. These points were affixed to dart shafts that were propelled with a spear thrower or _atlatl_, a device that preceded the bow and arrow in America but is still used by Australian Aborigines.

Seasonal changes in the local availability of wild foods must have necessitated a nomadic or seminomadic way of life. The development of agricultural techniques in the later years before the beginning of the Christian Era, however, probably contributed to the development of a semisedentary existence that was eventually to lead to the village life of the later periods. The exact time of introduction of the principal agricultural crops, corn, squash, and beans, is unknown, but evidence from west-central New Mexico indicates their use by the Cochise people by 2500 B.C.

PUEBLOAN FARMERS

Having acquired the techniques of deliberately planting and raising food crops that could be stored against future needs, local populations of Hunters and Gatherers became less dependent upon the gathering of wild foods and began to construct clusters of more permanent dwellings near cultivable land. Among the earliest recognized houses of this period are the semisubterranean pit houses of the early Mogollon people in the San Francisco River drainage of west-central New Mexico (fig. 4) and of the Anasazi Basketmakers in the San Juan River drainage of northwestern New Mexico. These cultural advances, together with the acquisition of techniques for the manufacture of fired pottery, foreshadowed the development of the Mogollon and Pueblo cultures at a time beginning perhaps as early as 300 B.C. for the Mogollon area and at least by 1 A.D. for the Anasazi area.

These two cultural groups, the Mogollon in southwestern and southern New Mexico, whose roots extend back through the ancestral Cochise to before 6000 B.C., and the Anasazi in the Four Corners region of northwestern New Mexico, probably developed independently during the early years. From about 500 A.D., however, there is increasing evidence of trade relationships and eventual fusion of traits. Other groups to the west, such as the Hohokam of Arizona, were sources of cultural influence on the indigenous people of New Mexico. In the Mogollon and San Juan Anasazi heartlands and in the Rio Grande Valley of central New Mexico, a pattern of village life with elaboration of social and religious organization emerged from the relatively simple cultures of the early years. Villages began to assume organized form, dwellings were combined in rows of adobe and stone structures containing a number of contiguous rooms, and subterranean ceremonial chambers or _kivas_ assumed larger and more specialized architectural distinctiveness from the ancestral pit-house dwellings. In the Mogollon area, the characteristic brownware pottery of the Mogollons was used side by side with decorated black-on-white pottery of Anasazi origin. The bow and arrow slowly replaced the less efficient _atlatl_ and dart. The significance of these early stages in the evolution of the Pueblo Culture in the San Juan and upper Rio Grande areas is indicated by their designation as the Developmental Pueblo period (Pueblo I and II).

The climax of these developments occurred in the interval between 1050 and 1300 A.D. in the Classic or Great Pueblo period (Pueblo III). Among the most impressive manifestations of this period are large stone-masonry apartment houses, some rising to five stories in height and housing hundreds of people. Dwellings of this type are highlights of several well-known tourist attractions, among which are the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado and the monumental ruins of Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon (fig. 5), both products of the ingenuity of the Anasazi Indians.

At the very apex of the cultural efflorescence of the Great Pueblo period, some unknown circumstance or series of events caused abandonment of most of the urban centers of the San Juan Anasazi and Mogollon areas. A prolonged drouth is recorded by tree rings formed during the period from 1276 to 1299 A.D. Surely a drouth of this magnitude would have had serious effects on people as dependent upon agriculture as were the Pueblo Indians. There are some indications that alien and perhaps enemy people were drifting into these areas at about this time, perhaps predecessors of the modern Navajos and Apaches. The congested living conditions of Pueblo villages undoubtedly contributed to unsanitary conditions and social pressures that also may have contributed to shifts in population. Many of these migrants moved into the homeland of the Rio Grande Anasazi in the upper Rio Grande Valley, and to a lesser extent in the central Rio Grande Valley. Some may have relocated at Zuni and other areas along the Little Colorado River drainage extending westward into Arizona.

During the Great Pueblo period, another group showing characteristics of both the Anasazi and of non-Puebloan people occupied an area on both sides of the Continental Divide along the eastern margin of the San Juan Basin. This cultural phase, known as the Largo-Gallina because of the distribution of sites in the Largo and Gallina drainage basins, is represented by pit houses, surface rooms, and towerlike structures with some similarities to the dwellings of the Anasazi. The black-on-white pottery also suggests Puebloan relationships, whereas the culinary vessels resemble those of the Navajo.

Beginning at about 1300 A.D. or shortly thereafter, a different cultural group began to move westward from the Texas Panhandle into the plains of northeastern New Mexico. These people of the Panhandle Aspect built single-room structures and contiguous room pueblos resembling those in use by the Anasazi of the Rio Grande and were skilled bison hunters, farmers, and traders. This combination of traits suggests both Puebloan and eastern traditions. Panhandle Aspect villages were abandoned suddenly not long after 1400, perhaps as a result of the drouth recorded by tree rings for the period from 1439 to 1454.

Following the shift in population of the Pueblo region, cultural changes occurred that have led to the designation Regressive Pueblo period (Pueblo IV) for the interval between 1300 and 1700 A.D. Noteworthy changes during this period include a tendency toward enlargement of villages and the creation of new styles of pottery, accompanied by some deterioration of the artistic creativity of the Classic period. Major ruins of this period that are readily accessible to the public include Puye Cliff Dwellings, Tyuonyi Pueblo in Bandelier National Monument, and Pecos Pueblo in Pecos National Monument.

At the time of Coronado’s _entrada_ in 1540, there were from 60 to 70 Pueblo villages in New Mexico, most of which contained fewer than 400 inhabitants. Four or five mutually unintelligible languages were spoken, each with several dialects, making communication between Spanish and Indian extremely difficult. Language barriers contributed to an inadequate documentation of the Pueblo way of life during the early years of Spanish contact, so that we must continue to depend upon the archeological record during the first century of Spanish colonization of the area. The beginning of the Historic Pueblo period (Pueblo V) accordingly is commonly set at 1700 A.D.

APACHES AND NAVAJOS

Little is known concerning the origin of these two related groups, who differ markedly from the Pueblo Indians in language and cultural traits. Their closest ties are with other Athapaskan-speaking tribes in northwestern Canada, and available evidence indicates that they are comparative newcomers to the Southwest. A correlation between the abandonment of sections of the Pueblo region and pressures exerted by ancestral Apaches and Navajos has been suggested, but definite proof of this is still lacking. Raids against the eastern pueblos of the Galisteo Basin are reported to have occurred in 1525. Coronado’s expedition encountered nomadic hunters in the plains east of Pecos in 1541, observing that they followed the movements of herds of bison or buffalo on whom they were highly dependent for food and shelter, lived in portable tents of tanned buffalo hides supported by a framework of poles, and used dogs as beasts of burden. Trade contacts with the Rio Grande pueblos included exchange of hide “cloaks” for corn grown by the Pueblo Indians.

Related groups in western and northwestern New Mexico are even more poorly known, as there was still less contact between them and the Spanish explorers. Evidently some agriculture was practiced as a supplement to a subsistence based largely on hunting and gathering, a pattern of livelihood reminiscent of that of the pre-Puebloan Cochise people.

The succeeding years of Spanish and American colonization of New Mexico were to be highly influenced by the Apaches and Navajos, and also by another group of Plains Indians, the Comanches. The events of this period, however, are discussed in a separate article.

Frontier Forts of New Mexico

_by_ Robert A. Bieberman

Following President Polk’s declaration of war against Mexico in May 1846, a United States Army force was sent from Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, against the Mexican provinces of New Mexico and California. This army, known as “The Army of the West,” was led by Gen. Stephen W. Kearny. Upon his arrival in Santa Fe in August 1846, General Kearny issued a proclamation which informed the citizens that New Mexico was now a part of the United States and that he and his army and the forces to follow would protect them and their property. General Kearny remained in Santa Fe only one month, but during that month he appointed a governor, judges, and other officials, started construction of a fort in Santa Fe, and sent troops against the Navajo Indians in fulfillment of his promise to protect the people. Kearny and his “Army of the West” left Santa Fe in September 1846 to conquer California, leaving behind a detachment of troops under the command of Col. Alexander W. Doniphan. Thus began the role of the U.S. Army, which was to continue for the next half century, in securing the frontier in what we now know as the State of New Mexico.

History has shown that the troops stationed in New Mexico were called upon to participate in the Mexican War and the Civil War and to protect the newly established border between Mexico and New Mexico from violations from both sides. However, the basic role of the military, the role which continued for fifty years, was to protect the traveler, the farmer, the miner, and the settler from Indian attack. Its task was made no less difficult by the changing, unrealistic, discriminatory Indian policies which came out of Washington during this period. When relative calm was established, promises were forgotten and violence erupted anew.

The defense policy in New Mexico did not follow a set plan but gradually evolved. Military posts were established at different places when the need arose and were abandoned when the need diminished. A few of the posts were occupied and used by the army throughout most of this period. Others existed but a few months or years.

FORTS

Fort Union

Located twenty-seven miles northeast of Las Vegas, Fort Union became the most important and most famous fort in the New Mexico Territory. Established on the Santa Fe Trail in 1851, it served as supply depot for the territory and as a base for troops engaged in the protection of traffic along the Santa Fe Trail and of the settlements in the area from the depredations of the Apaches, Utes, Comanches, and Kiowas. The site can be reached by traveling eight miles of paved road which leaves U.S. Highway 85 one mile north of Watrous.

During its forty-year history, Fort Union occupied three different sites, all within the same general area. The original fort was of log construction which rapidly fell into disrepair. In August 1861, amid rumors of the possible invasion of the territory by Confederate forces, construction was begun on a new fort. This fort was of earthworks, in the form of an eight-pointed star. It was here that the troops waited for the attack which never came. With the passing of the Confederate threat, work was begun in 1863 on the third fort, the remains of which are seen today.

Fort Union soon became the largest fort in the territory. It was constructed in two sections, one for the garrison and one for the supply depot. The garrison area consisted of four infantry and two cavalry barracks facing a row of nine officers’ quarters across the parade ground. A sixty-bed hospital was constructed. The depot area included five warehouses, mechanics corral, transportation corral, and administration buildings. An arsenal was built about one mile from the fort proper.

The buildings were constructed of adobe on stone foundations. The roofs were flat and the walls were capped with brick copings in what has become the territorial style of architecture.

Fort Union was a community within itself and a lively social center. Weary travelers on the Santa Fe Trail eagerly anticipated their arrival. Few complaints were heard when soldiers were transferred to Fort Union, for this was a popular assignment.

With the coming of the railroad and peace at last descending on the frontier in the 1880’s, the need for the fort diminished. But it clung to life for a few more years, mainly because of the fond memories which lived in the hearts of the military leaders who had been stationed there. Finally, the end came and Fort Union was abandoned in February 1891.

New life came to the fort in 1955 when it became a National Monument. The ruins have been excavated and stabilized and a fine visitors’ center and museum has been established. Fort Union has at last assumed its rightful place as a shrine of history. Stand on the parade ground and survey the majesty that was Fort Union, listen for the sounds, the bugle calls, the barklike commands of close-order drill, the creak of wagons, and the thunder of horses’ hooves. These are the sounds of Fort Union. They are still there if one will only pause and listen.

Fort Marcy

Fort Marcy was established in 1846 at Santa Fe and was named for the then Secretary of War, W. L. Marcy. The fort was located on a hill overlooking the city some 1000 yards northeast of the plaza. A deep ditch or moat surrounded the massive adobe walls of the fort and a blockhouse, within musket range, protected the only entrance. At the time of Colonel Manfield’s inspection trip in August 1853, the troops were quartered in public buildings in Santa Fe, there being no quarters provided at the fort; however, it could be occupied on a moment’s notice. The original Fort Marcy was abandoned in 1867 and a new one was constructed a short distance to the west. This new site is now occupied by business and residential properties. The War Department abandoned Fort Marcy in October 1894, the troops and equipment being moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The site was turned over to the city of Santa Fe in 1897.

Fort Marcy played an important role during the military occupation of New Mexico. It served as a base of operations against marauding Indians, was captured and occupied for a short time by Confederate forces in 1862, served as headquarters for the Ninth Military Department (changed to Department of New Mexico in 1853) throughout most of this period, and was a center for the social life of Santa Fe. Only low mounds of earth now mark the site of Fort Marcy.

Fort Wingate

Fort Wingate, at the site known today, was established in 1868. It is located on the site of a pre-existing fort at Ojo del Oso (Bear Springs) about twelve miles east of Gallup and three miles south of U.S. Highway 66.

Fort Fauntleroy was established in August 1860 and was named for the then Department Commander, Col. T. T. Fauntleroy. The name was changed to Fort Lyon in September 1861 after Colonel Fauntleroy resigned his commission and joined the Confederate forces. The fort was abandoned in December 1861 as troops were concentrated at other posts to meet the threat of invasion of the territory by Confederate forces from the south. With the defeat of Confederate troops early in 1862, the military returned to the Indian problem and established a post some sixty miles to the east on the Rio de Gallo near San Rafael. This post was named Fort Wingate in honor of Capt. Benjamin Wingate who died of wounds received during the battle with the Confederate forces at Val Verde. The post proved to be too far from the Navajo country for effective control and, in 1868, was abandoned and a new Fort Wingate established at Ojo del Oso on the site occupied earlier by Fort Fauntleroy.

The physical plant of the new Fort Wingate consisted of barracks, officers’ quarters, hospital, guard house, storehouse, employees’ quarters, corrals, barns, and various repair and storage sheds, all bordering the traditional rectangular parade ground. Some of these buildings are in use today.

In 1914, 4000 Mexican refugees lived in a tent city at Fort Wingate until peace was restored after Pancho Villa’s revolution in Mexico. Following World War I, it became an ordnance storage depot, and new administrative and living quarters were built several miles west of the original fort enclosure. This installation is known today as Fort Wingate Ordnance Depot, and the long rows of concrete ammunition storage bunkers can be seen from U.S. Highway 66. In 1925, the original fort enclosure was transferred to the Department of the Interior for use as an Indian school. Today, the parade ground is a playground and the barracks are dormitories for the children who attend this school. The missile age came to Fort Wingate in 1963 when a portion of the military reservation became the launching site for test rockets which impact at the White Sands Missile Range 200 miles to the south.

Fort Wingate has seen many changes during its long and colorful history. It served well during its first 100 years and continues to serve today.

Fort Craig

Fort Craig was established in the spring of 1854 on the abandonment of Fort Conrad, nine miles north. It was named in honor of Col. L. S. Craig who was killed by an army deserter on June 6, 1852. The remains of Fort Craig are located on the west bank of the Rio Grande about thirty-four miles south of Socorro and five miles, by dirt road, east of U.S. Highway 85. The fort was established to afford protection against the many bands of Apaches that roamed this part of the territory.

Fort Craig was well built and became one of the best-garrisoned military posts in New Mexico. Built on the usual rectangular plan, the parade ground was bordered on the northeast by two double officers’ quarters; on the northwest by the guard house, prison room, and sallyport; on the southwest by three soldiers’ barracks each in the form of a hollow square enclosing a patio; and on the southeast by various workshops, storerooms, stables, and corrals. The commanding officers’ quarters occupied the west corner of the parade ground and the hospital the east corner. Behind the commanding officers’ quarters there were three large bombproof storerooms. The entire installation was enclosed within a high wall, beyond which a ditch encircled the fort. Gun bastions projected from the north and south corners.

Fort Craig was one of the most important military posts in New Mexico. Its troops participated in many engagements with the Indian. In the fall of 1861, troops from other posts were concentrated at Fort Craig to meet the threatened invasion of Confederate forces from the south. In February 1862, these troops were defeated by the Confederate invaders in the battle of Val Verde which took place about four miles north of the fort. Upon the withdrawal of Confederate forces from the territory later in 1862, the troops at Fort Craig returned to the Indian problem. In March 1885, the fort was relinquished by the army and the improvements sold. The last soldier left in August 1885 after government property was removed and sent to Forts Bliss and Stanton. The buildings were sold at public auction on April 30, 1894, to the Valverde Land and Irrigation Company for $1070.50.

Fort Craig is now a ruin, but the outlines of most of the buildings can still be seen. Portions of the plastered walls of the commanding officers’ quarters remain, as do portions of the hospital and stone guard house. The wall and ditch surrounding the fort, gun bastions, storehouses, and cemetery are still much in evidence. Coal marks the blacksmith’s shop and broken bottles the sutler’s store. Another frontier fort has passed into history.

Fort Stanton

Fort Stanton was established in May 1855 on the Rio Bonito at a site located approximately four miles east of present-day Capitan and three miles south of U.S. Highway 380. The fort was an attempt to control the Mescalero and White Mountain Apaches and was named for Capt. H. W. Stanton who had been killed by Apache Indians earlier that year. Many a soldier stationed at Fort Stanton gave up his life to an Apache during the Indian wars.

The original fort was little more than a stockade, with few buildings and little equipment. In August 1861, the government stores were burned and the troops moved to Albuquerque in the face of the Confederate invasion. Confederate troops occupied the site one month later but promptly left after a few encounters with the Apache. The site was reoccupied by Union troops October 1862 and, later, substantial buildings were erected, most of which still stand.

With the passing of the frontier, Fort Stanton was abandoned as a military post in August 1896, and in 1899, the installation passed to the U.S. Public Health Service for use as a merchant marine hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis. During World War II, a German prisoner of war camp was established at the fort. In 1953, the hospital was closed by the federal government because of the high cost of running the establishment. Fort Stanton is now a state tuberculosis hospital operated by the New Mexico Department of Public Welfare.

Col. Kit Carson used the fort as a base of operations while rounding up the Mescalero and White Mountain Apaches in late 1862 and early 1863. In 1881, the famous outlaw, Billy the Kid, was confined in the building now used as a dental clinic while on his way to the gallows in Lincoln, which never claimed him. Gen. John J. Pershing, as a young lieutenant, was stationed for a time at Fort Stanton.

Fort Selden

Fort Selden was established in 1865 and named for Capt. Henry R. Selden (later colonel) who distinguished himself at the battle of Val Verde, February 21, 1862. The fort was beside the Rio Grande nine miles north of the settlement of Doña Ana. The site is located along U.S. Highway 85 about seventeen miles north of present-day Las Cruces.

Fort Selden was one of a chain of forts established to control the Apaches. It was on the Butterfield Trail and provided protection for the government rope ferry which crossed the Rio Grande at nearby Leasburg. The summit of Mt. Robledo, across the river to the west, was used as a heliograph station, flashing messages between Fort Selden and Fort Bliss at Franklin (El Paso, Texas).

The buildings of the fort were one-story adobe structures with walls two feet thick. The installation included barracks for enlisted men, two double officers’ quarters, a ten-bed hospital, stone guard house, storehouses, workshop, bake shop, corrals, and a magazine with stone walls three feet thick. The fort was rectangular in ground plan, the buildings enclosing a parade ground.

Fort Selden was abandoned in 1879 when the railroads began to draw travel away from the overland trails. It was reoccupied in 1881 when the Apache Chiefs Victorio, Nana, and later Geronimo were on the warpath. With the passing of the Indian problem, Fort Selden was permanently abandoned in 1892. During World War I, the grounds of the fort were used for cavalry maneuvers by units stationed at Fort Bliss.

A rather famous American once lived at Fort Selden. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, as a child of four, moved with his family to the fort in 1884, following the assignment of his father, then an infantry captain, to that post. The family remained at Fort Selden until late in 1886.

Now only crumbling adobe walls mark the site of Fort Selden, once a welcome sight to travelers in southern New Mexico. The wind, rain, and sun have taken their toll, aided in no small way by man himself. In 1963, through the efforts of the Doña Ana Historical Society, Fort Selden was made a State Monument by the New Mexico legislature. It is to be hoped that the fort will now be protected from further weathering and vandalism so that the remnants of this old outpost will stand for many years to come as a monument to the men who once manned it.

Fort Cummings

Fort Cummings was established in October 1863 in what is now Luna County, New Mexico. It was located at Cooke’s Spring, an important watering stop on the Butterfield Trail, at the eastern edge of Cooke’s Canyon. Prior to the establishment of Fort Cummings, the Apaches made frequent and fatal attacks upon travelers as they passed through the four miles of Cooke’s Canyon or stopped at the spring. Cooke’s Canyon was one of the most dangerous stretches on the Butterfield Trail. The fort was named for Maj. Joseph Cummings who was killed by Navajo Indians in August 1863. Its ruins can be reached by turning off State Highway 26 at Florida, sixteen miles northeast of Deming, and traveling seven miles to the west.

Fort Cummings was the most elaborate and best-walled fort in New Mexico. It covered an area 365 × 320 feet and was completely surrounded by a twelve-foot-high adobe wall. The main entrance was topped by a guard tower. Officers’ quarters occupied the west side of the parade ground, the hospital the north side, and soldiers’ quarters the east side. The various workshops, storerooms, offices, stables, and corrals extended along the south side of the fort.

Abandoned in August 1873, Fort Cummings was reoccupied in 1880, and then again abandoned in October 1886. Later it was used as a cattle corral by the Carpenter-Stanley Cattle Company. The spring was walled and covered, and the water piped to Florida.

Little remains of Fort Cummings today. A few weathered walls here and there among the mesquite and creosote bushes mark the site. The spring still flows, supplying water for the stock which now graze upon this “protector of the trail.”

Fort Bayard