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12,000 years of hunting, gathering, raising, growing, cooking, marketing &
Eating in New Mexico: First New Mexicans


Ancient Indian Cultures:
Clovis Culture | Folsom Site | Chaco Canyon Culture | Mogollon/Mimbres | Bandelier |

New Mexico's Indian Nations:

Apache, Navajo, Pueblo


Ancient Indian Cultures

New Mexico's food history begins with hunting and gathering peoples whose descendents later started growing crops and lived in permanent settlements. Celebrated sites such as Clovis, Folsom, Mimbres Valley, Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, to name a few, provided much of our understanding of the first Americans and what they ate.

Due to the efforts of many New Mexican groups and individuals these important food heritage sites are in various states of preservation and many allow public access. Others have established museums and exhibits to educate the public about their prehistoric food heritage.


Clovis Culture

 

About Clovis Culture, Blackwater Drawc. 11,200 years ago


Clovis points (photo source)

Clovis Culture is known for the invention of superbly crafted grooved or fluted stone projectiles (Clovis points) first found near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1932. Clovis points have been found throughout the Americas. The people of this era hunted big game, notably mammoths.

Blackwater Locality No. 1 is the "Clovis Type Site" for the oldest accepted widespread culture in the New World. Evidence of their remarkable "fluted" points (a New World invention), other stone and bone weapons, tools, and processing implements are found at the site. These implements are associated with extinct Pleistocene megafauna such as Columbian mammoth, ancient bison, large horses, and large turtles. Other Pleistocene age animals that visited the site for food and water were tapir, camel, four-prong antelope, tampulama, llama, deer, dire wolf, ground sloth, short-faced bear, saber-tooth cat, shovel-toothed amebeledon, beaver, armadillos, and peccary.

Blackwater Locality No. 1 contains the earliest water control system in the New World. Clovis age and Archaic age wells were found here indicating climate fluctuations and variable water tables in one of the most stable spring fed lakes of the past, providing a much needed water source in times of drought. The Clovis age hand dug well is currently on display on the east side of the South Bank at the site.

Food heritage site threatened

Gravel mining began in September 1932, beginning with two horses dragging gravel with fresnal type buckets into piles to be loaded onto trucks for road construction. In the 1950's massive earth moving equipment and dynamite were subsequently used to move the 20-30 feet deep overburden (which contained cultural materials) resting above the gravel.

Preservation efforts

Since the site's discovery, attempts were made in 1940 by John Cotter, in 1956 by Fred Wendorf, and 1963 by a host of New Mexico dignitaries and local people, to save several acres of the in situ cultural deposits from being destroyed by gravel mining. Not until 1978 were the Site's 157 acres purchased by Eastern New Mexico University. The 1983-1984 investigations revealed 800 meters of in situ cultural deposits on the southwest side. Buried camp sites are also thought to exist around the former ancient lake edge.

Description of a hunt using Clovis spear points


Artist interpretation of Paleoindians hunting Bison antiquus (image credit)

The time is 13,300 years ago. Imagine that you are enjoying the view of the lush vegetation on the Llano Estacado. The spring fed Blackwater Draw Lake is a favorite place to hunt. You remember how much better this water tastes than the last water hole. It feels good to rest for the moment, watching the insects and birds fly around. The group of hunters you are with suddenly become alert. A tense excitement is mounting as a loud, awesome sound is heard. You recognize this as the sound of a mammoth. The animal is tromping through the tall grasses that surround the lake wanting a drink of cool water. Your extended family members have begun stalking toward the sound. They motion with hand signals for you to go in a certain direction.

Everyone prepares for the flurry of action to come. The spear throwing stick is aimed and ready. The Clovis spear points are sharp. Hopefully one will pierce a vital organ and cause the huge creature to die. The signal is given and the attack proceeds. The mammoth falls. The band of hunters rush to finish the kill.

Plenty of food is available from one animal this size. Tons of meat can be prepared for the coming winter. Most of the group helps in the process of preparing the meat, hide, and bones for future use. Some members keep watch with their weapons ready. Other large predators may be nearby and hungry.

This scene was repeated many times during the Clovis occupation of the Blackwater Draw Site. Even though other animals were killed for food, the mammoth was considered the prize. It provided an abundance of food and other natural resources, such as sinew, tusks, and bone for weapons and tools. Brains for tanning the hide and rib bones for shelter supports were also obtained. Nothing was wasted. (A Brief Scenario of Life at Blackwater Locality No. 1 Site)

Blackwater Draw Museum first opened to the public in 1969 and displays artifacts and exhibits associated with the Blackwater Locality No. 1 Archaeological Site, one of the most important archaeological sites in the New World. Over 13,000 years of site usage are described, from mammoth hunting to modern culture.

Blackwater Locality No. 1 is a National Historic Landmark, a key archaeological site in the New World. This unique site documents and interprets the earliest Paleoindian cultures in North America. It is a research entity and is used as a reference point for Paleoindian Studies in North America and the Southern High Plains. Blackwater Locality No. 1 is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

 

 

Learn more about Clovis vs. Pre-Clovis sites....the alternative views


Folsom Culture


The original folsom point embedded in the ribs of a bison.

The Folsom Point, discovered near Folsom, New Mexico, in 1927, was crafted from flint some 10 thousand years ago. Discovered on a joint expedition by archaeologists from the American Museum of Natural History and the Denver Museum of Natural History, this spear point stands among the most important archaeological finds ever made on this continent.

This single point settled a longstanding difference of opinion about when the first humans arrived in what we now call North America. Many believed the first Native American cultures to be no more than 2000 or 3000 years old, while others believed that they were thousands of years older than that. With the discovery of the Folsom Point, which was embedded in the bones of a bison known to have been extinct for 10,000 years, the disagreement was resolved: the point was incontrovertible evidence that there were humans here as early as the Ice Age. The real Folsom Point is displayed in a cast of the bones in which it was embedded, re-creating the way this momentous discovery appeared to members of the expedition. ---source

 

Preservation of Folsom as a food heritage site


View of Folsom Site's left bank; "Folsom Man" monument

The site is now protected from elk and livestock damage by virtue of the 8 foot high fence constructed by the state in 2002. The banks of Wild Horse Arroyo are now partially covered by vegetation (grasses and forbs), and these serve to partially stabilize the slopes. The small check dams in the main channel of Wild Horse Arroyo have trapped 4 to 6 inches of silt behind them, allowing plants to establish themselves on the floor of the arroyo; and these serve to protect the arroyo bottom during periods of runoff. The danger of catastrophic erosive loss of some portion of the remaining cultural deposits remains, as it has continuously since the major flood event that first exposed the site. The measures taken in 2002 address some of the small-scale effects of animal activities and natural erosive processes that occur on a regular basis but cannot ameliorate the broader situation.

Conditions have improved to the extent that the construction of the fence and small-scale check dams allow. Encouraging the natural vegetation to re-establish itself within the 10-acre state monument area has stabilized the slopes considerably. Trapping silt behind the small check dams provides a substrate for the growth of vegetation within the drainage channels. This is beneficial in that the vegetation will lay down during a flood event, thereby protecting the substrate and conveying runoff downstream with a minimum of erosive effect within the monument boundaries. The New Mexico State Land Office (SLO) will continue to manage the property so as to preserve and protect the locale and the remaining cultural deposits. The SLO is developing a cooperative management agreement with New Mexico State Monuments Division of the Department of Cultural Affairs that will assist in providing protection and stewardship for the property.
(source)

 

Bison antiquus


Bison antiquus (image credit)

 

Recent find of Bison antiquus near Folsom
The remains of a bison were recently discovered along Archuleta Creek, a
tributary of the Dry Cimarron River, at a spot just ca. 4 km from the Folsom
type site. The bones were exposed in a deeply undercut, eroding section of the
south bank of the creek. They consisted of a series of ordered vertebrae lying
flat with their dorsal surfaces protruding out of the stream bank, suggesting
the skeleton was on its side, oriented roughly parallel to the present drainage.
The remains were found ca. 4 m below the present surface, lying along the
upper, undulating surface of what appeared to be Pleistocene-age gravel, and
largely contained within and overlain by fine, overbank sediments.
(Read the rest of the report)

 

The Discoverer of the Folsom Site

In 1908, after the Folsom Flood of August 27th, a Black Cowboy by the name of George McJunkin discovered a large deposit of bones protruding from the bank of the Dry Cimarron River while riding in Wild Horse Arroyo with a friend, Bill Gordon. Bill took some of the bones to Raton and showed them to Fred Howarth. It was George McJunkin, however, who was convinced that these bones were unusual. An amateur archeaologist, George knew they had to be of some extinct animal. Unfortunately, George did not live to know that he had discovered "Folsom Man." It wasn't until 1925 that scientist determined that George's discovery was one of the most important archaeological finds ever made in North America.
Read more here.

 

Folsom Museum; Folsom Site in 1928

"Folsom Site" at Wild Horse Canyon, eight miles west of Folsom, New Mexico is one of the most widely known archaeological localities in North America. It is routinely mentioned in archaeological texts, regularly appears on maps of notable American sites and, of course, served historically as the type locality for the Folsom Paleoindian period – a slice of time and a distinctive archaeological culture dating from around 10,900 to around 10,200 years ago. Folsom is on the National Register of Historic Places, it is a National Historic Landmark, and it is a New Mexico State Monument.

Folsom Museum (Folsom, New Mexico) is a community effort to introduce the story of the nearby Folsom site, where what became known as the Folsom Culture (c. 10,900 years ago) was discovered in 1926. "Folsom Man" developed a smaller, thinner, fluted spear point than Clovis type, hunted big game, notably the huge bison ancestor of the modern buffalo and used a spear-throwing device called an atlatl (an Aztec word for “spear-thrower”). Discovery of Folsom point in 1927 gave earliest proof of humans in America.

 


About the Anasazi (c. 300 B.C.–A.D. 1300)


Photo source


Anasazi (a Navajo word meaning “The ancient ones or "ancient enemies"”) is the general name for the people who link the hunter gatherering Paleo-Indians with the Native American peoples of contemporary New Mexico and the Southwest. The Anazazi's descendants are the Hopi and other Pueblo Indians. The Anasazi inhabited the Colorado Plateau “four corners,” where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado now meet. Their settled way of life was due mainly to the cultivation of corn, beans, squash. They also cultivated cotton and wove cloth. The early Anasazi are known as the Basketmaker People for their extraordinary basketwork. They were skilled workers in stone, carved stone Kachina dolls, built pit houses which later developed into apartment-like pueblos. They constructed road networks, were avid astronomers, used a solar calendar. They traded with Mesoamerican Toltecs. Important Anasazi sites are Chaco Canyon, N.M.; Mesa Verde, Colo.; Canyon de Chelly, Ariz.; Bandelier, N.M.; Betatkin, N.M. The Acoma Pueblo, N.M., built circa A.D. 1300 and still occupied, may be the oldest continuously inhabited village in the U.S.

The Anasazi and the Puebloans, who came after them, were corn farmers.


A pueblo farmer, using a digging stick with footrest to plant corn seeds.

 


Anasazi corn kernels (photo credit)

 


"Piki": a paper thin blue corn bread (photo credit)

Piki (possibly an Anasazi creation) is a special bread now made mostly by the Hopi of their blue corn. It is several thicknesses of transparently thin flat bread 15 or 16 inches in diameter, rolled into a scroll; the best is so light it is almost weightless. It is crisp and delicious with the delicate but distinctive blue corn flavor. The next paragraph is a description of the traditional method of making piki, as told by Carol Locust of the Native American Research and Training Center of the University of Arizona.


Piki is cooked on a smooth stone over a small fire.
Piki griddles have been passed down through generations of Puebloan women. (photo credit)

"I remember seeing her on her knees in the piki house, a small outside building of ancient blocks, and watching her test the large, flat, piki stone for its heat. The blue corn meal in the bowl beside her had been ground to powder, mixed with a small amount of finely sifted ashes, and blended with fresh spring water until thick and smooth as cream. Kneeling in front of the piki stone, Ellie was hardly visible, but she became a whirlwind of activity when the stone was hot enough. Her hands moved like lightning. Deftly she dipped one hand into the bowl of piki mixture, scooping a certain amount on the outside of her palm, and swiftly -- very swiftly -- swept her hand and the mixture across the hot stone. As quickly Ellie's other hand lifted the parchment and placed it to the side, while another scoop of mixture was already being swept across the stone. The two transparent sheets were rolled together, and a third and fourth added, and a fifth and sixth, until Ellie was satisfied and the rolled transparent sheets became a piki bread. Ellie worked tirelessly and, it seemed, effortlessly."

Excerpt from The Piki Maker: Disabled American Indians, Cultural Beliefs, and Traditional Behaviors, a monograph by Carol Locust, Ph.D., published by Native American Research and Training Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.

While corn, beans and squash and other plants were the primary sources of food for the Anasazi and later the Puebloans, they always hunted large and small animals. Hunting rituals played an important part in their religious ceremonies.


Deer and other hunted animals were treated with great respect, so that their spirits would be pleased and send other animals for men's food. Sometimes their bodies were decorated with blankets and turquoise.


Most Anasazi and later Puebloan hunters relied on smaller animals. This hunter is preparing to throw a rabbit hunting stick.

 


Here are diagrams of traps for catching coyotes, prairie dogs and rabbits.


Mimbres Culture Pottery: an important source of information about the foodways of prehistoric peoples of NM


image credit

Western New Mexico University Museum houses one of the largest permanent displays of Mimbres Pottery and culture in the world.

Mogollon Culture (Mimbres Valley)

The Mogollon (pronounced mo-goi-YONE) is the name applied to one of the four major prehistoric archaeological traditions of the American Southwest. The American Indian culture known as the Mogollon lived in the southwest from approximately AD 700 until sometime between AD 1300 and AD 1400. The name Mogollon comes from the Mogollon Mountains, which were named after a Spanish official, Don Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollón.

The Mogollon settled high-altitude desert areas in what is today New Mexico, northern Mexico and western Texas. The Mogollon were an agricultural people who lived primarily in cliff dwellings or high plateau villages overlooking their farmland. They supplemented their farming with hunting and gathering activities. They developed pit houses, later dwelt in pueblos. Were accomplished stoneworkers. Famous for magnificent black on white painted pottery. (read more)

Important food sources for Mimbres people
depicted on their pottery

The black-tailed jackrabbit is really a hare and was an important food source for the Mimbres people and was often pictured on Mimbres food bowls. (image credit)

It was because of these extraordinary bowls that archeologists first took an interest in the seemingly unremarkable Mimbres culture. The Mimbres villages were scattered throughout southwestern New Mexico, big blocklike complexes of connected storage and living rooms. The compact living quarters, about 45 to 60 feet square, were lit by ceiling hatchways and small vents in an outside wall. Large plazas in the center of each village, surrounded by the housing complexes, provided space for public ceremonies, communal rituals, and food preparation—activities depicted on the bowls.

The Mimbres gathered wild plants and hunted game, but they also cultivated squash, corn, and beans, and—at a time when the Anasazis relied on scarce and unpredictable rainfall—constructed extensive irrigation systems to ensure a steady water supply for their crops. Although their agriculture suggests a static existence, the group did not live in complete isolation.

Fish (HM 4780, 4774, 4778, 99) were also commonly depicted on Mimbres pottery bowls. While many are images of the local Chihuahua Chub the Mimbres caught for food. (image credit)

Ocean fish depicted on their bowls indicate the Mimbres traveled as far as the Gulf of California, five or six hundred miles away. And they seem to have traded with various groups to obtain shell jewelry, feathers, stone axes, and other luxury and ritual items.

Their remarkable success at managing their environment may finally have led to the depletion of important natural resources. Skeletal evidence suggests that the Mimbres suffered from poor health and dietary deficiencies. Ultimately, the group disappeared around A.D. 1150, although there is little doubt of their connection to the Pueblo people. (source)

Human figures make up only about 15% of the painted figures, and date to the last 150 years of Mimbres civilization. The Palmer collection contains several of these figural pieces, most of which depict hunting scenes (HM 96, 114, 4782,). Mimbres hunters used animal guises (HM 104, 5098) as a part of their hunting ritual. The idea behind wearing the mask of an animal during hunting—not necessarily that of the animal to be killed—was to encourage the prey to approach closer before it was killed.
Palmer Collection in Maine Center for the Arts

 

The great value of the ceramic collection obtained from the Mimbres is the large number of figures representing men, animals, and characteristic geometrical designs, often highly conventionalized, depicted on their interiors. These figures sometimes cover a greater part of the inner surface, are often duplicated, and are commonly surrounded by geometrical designs or simple lines parallel with the outer rim of the vessel. It is important to notice the graceful way in which geometrical figures with which the ancient potters decorated their bowls are made to grade into the bodies of animals, as when animal figures become highly conventionalized into geometrical designs.

The ancients represented on their food bowls men engaged in various occupations, such as hunting or ceremonial dances, and in that way have bequeathed to us a knowledge of their dress, their way of arranging their hair, weapons, and other objects adopted on such occasions. They have figured many animals accompanied by conventional figures which have an intimate relation to their cults and their social organization. Although limited in amount and imperfect in its teaching this material is most instructive. (source: Fewkes, Jesse Walter. The Mimbres Art and Archaeology with an Introduction by J.J. Brody. Albuguerque, New Mexico: Avanyu Publishing, Inc. 1989).


Chaco Canyon


View of Chaco Canyon great houses (photo credit)

About 1030, the Chacoan people combined pre-planned architectural designs, astronomical alignments, geometry, landscaping, and engineering to create an ancient urban center of spectacular public architecture. Researchers have concluded that the complex may have had a relatively small residential population, with larger groups assembling only temporarily for annual events and ceremonies. Smaller sites, apparently more residential in character, are scattered around the Great Houses in Chaco Canyon.

The extended Ancient Pueblo (Anasazi) community also began to experience a population and building boom about this time. By 1115, at least seventy outlying pueblos with characteristic Chacoan architecture had been built within the 25,000 square mile (65,000 km²) area of the San Juan Basin. Researchers debate the function of these outlying settlements, some large enough to be considered Great Houses in their own right. Some suggest they may have been more than agricultural communities, perhaps acting as trading posts or as ceremonial sites.

Many outliers are connected to the central canyon and to one another by the enigmatic Chacoan "roads." Extending up to 130 miles (208 km), in generally straight lines, these roads appear to have been extensively surveyed and engineered.

The cohesive system that characterized Chaco Canyon began to break down about 1140, perhaps in response to a severe region-wide drought, to water management that led to arroyo-cutting, and to deforestation.

The food connection to the decline of Chaco Canyon civilization is explained by Gary Nabhan in Enduring Seeds: Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant Conservation. "Chaco Canyon deforestation was driven by the use of one hundred thousand conifers for the multi-storied pueblos, an Anasazi city-state. Like the shapers and devenders of industrial economies, the priestly elite of Chaco were preoccupied with extra-regional trade of commodities rather than with local self-dufficiency. They had left behind the minds of subsistence farmers centuries before. Julio Betancourt has hypothesized tht Chaco's farmlands were abandoned when erosion followed the cutting of lumber and fuelwood in the watershed above the pueblos. At first, the loss of local natural resources may have intensified the pueblo's dependence on commodity imports. Soon, economic instabilities must have toppled the puebloan power structure. Although the Anasazi exodus from Chaco Canyon occurred with hundred years ago, Betancourt believes the vegetation there has not yet recovered."

The Museum and Interpretative Center of Chaco Canyon


image


The Chaco Collection contains approximately one million artifacts from over 120 sites in Chaco Canyon and the surrounding region. Because most of the artifacts were systematically collected and documented, the collections are extremely valuable for scientific studies.

The Archive documents over 100 years of excavation in Chaco Canyon, and contains approximately 300 linear feet of records, 30,000 photographs, 7,000 color slides, 600 glass lantern slides, 2,000 maps, 1,000 manuscripts, and field notes, reports, and other written records.

The objects in this exhibit represent the range of materials in the Chaco Collection. They give us insight into the remarkable achievements of the Chacoan culture, and help us connect more directly to the past.


digging stick

 

 

The Foods of Chaco Canyon
How a large and complex society fed itself.


Squash, corn, watermelon and pinon seeds.

 

The Chaco Mystery of Sustenance: one theory

"The Chaco Canyon Anasazi had no visible means of support. How did they survive? These Anasazi developed a sophisticated, though previously unrecognized, knowledge of the earth, particularly in relation to extreme fluctuations in yearly rainfall and its effect upon agricultural yields. I propose, therefore, that much of the Chaco Canyon architecture was specifically designed and constructed in response to this knowledge. The Chacoans were able to identify a virtually unknown blue-green algae which was common in the soil throughout the region and produced soluble nitrates and as such, could be exploited to produce fertilizer on which the entire agricultural system was based. Astronomical architectural alignments were clearly important, but a dependable and ample food supply, through ingenious growing and storage methods, was the foundation of Chacoan civilization."

Explore the full explanation here.


Bandelier

Best known for mesas, sheer-walled canyons, and several thousand ancestral Pueblo dwellings found among them, Bandelier also includes over 23,000 acres of designated wilderness. The best-known archeological sites, in Frijoles (beans) Canyon near the Visitor Center, were inhabited by farmers from the 1100s into the mid-1500s, and earlier groups had used the area for thousands of years. The park was named for Adolph Bandelier, a 19th-century anthropologist.

Frijoles Canyon, contains the (restored) ruins of a number of dwellings, kivas (ceremonial structures) and rock paintings. Some of the dwellings were rock structures built on the canyon floor; others were "cave dwellings" produced by voids in the tuff of the canyon wall and enlarged by human action; and still others were constructed of rock but used the canyon wall as the back wall of rooms. A 1 mile (1.6 km) paved loop trail from the visitors' center affords access to these features. A spur trail extending beyond this loop leads to Ceremonial Cave, a shelter cave produced by erosion of the soft tuff and containing a small, restored kiva that the hiker may enter via ladder. Some theories hold that this cave was where turkeys were kept. Turkeys were prized primarily as a souce of feathers and secondarily for food.

Learn more about the major Pre-Columbian Indian Cultures in the United States


Kuaua Pueblo at Coronado State Monument, Bernalillo

The village was located on the west side of the Rio Grande across from present-day Bernillio, NM--about 17 miles north of present-day Albuquerque, NM. The place had more than 1200 rooms. Construction was begun in the early fourteenth century. The place was abandoned shortly after the violent arrival of the Spanish in 1540-41. Most of the inhabitants were victims of genocide and Euro-viruses. See three views here of this ancient site here.


Runner in the Sun: A Story of Indian Maize


A society under stress must change or be destroyed. A pre-columbian Native American village in the Southwest has endured many years of drought and has reached its breaking point. Will the external forces of nature or the internal strife of the people be the hammer that shatters the village? This question is explored through the eyes of a boy, named Salt in the language of his people. Salt survives the machinations of a powerful member of his tribe, then begins a quest to find salvation for his people. Ostensibly a novel for young adults, Runner in the Sun presents a complex metaphor to explore the forces of societal change within a familiar hero-quest plot. The story seems simple but has rich soil in which anthropological and linguistic fruit may grow. Even the boy's name, Salt, carries metaphorical depth. As the village's water evaporates in drought, what is left is the people's true essence--the minerals the water carried. D'Arcy McNickle's lifelong focus on the shape of Indian society and its relationship to its surrounding world are expressed in the mythic context of Runner in the Sun (which is also a plain good read, too).Reviewer: Don Vogel (Montgomery Village, MD USA) Amazon

 

Continue to our exhibit about
Apache, Navajo and Pueblo Indians' food heritage here.


Click on images below to visit other NM food heritage exhibits.


New Mexican Cuisine

NM Food Heritage Home

NM Food Heritage Sites

First New Mexicans Foods

Spanish & Mexican Colonial

Territorial & Statehood

Santa Fe Food Heritage

Albuquerque Food Heritage

Las Cruces Food Heritage


Image credits (top row, left to right): ; Hatch chile pepper field; typical NM dishes; NM specialties map; Socorro history wheel (TFM photo); (middle row left to right): Zuni Pueblo waffle garden photo; San Isidro poster (TFM photo); chuckwagon (TFM photo); (bottom row, left to right): Geronimo restaurant in historic Santa Fe farmhouse; Albuquerque's founding sign (TFM photo); Las Cruces Enchilada Festival

 

 

 
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