A Reconstruction of Northern Rio Grande Prehistory

Abstract

of the Rio Grande where, according to the earliest Spanish accounts (Winship 1896), there were over forty villages in seven districts: Tiguex, with twelve pueblos located in the vicinity of modern Albuquerque and probably represented by the surviving Tiwa towns of Isleta and Sandia; seven pueblos in the Galisteo and along the eastern foothills of the Sandia Mountains; the Keres district with seven pueblos; Jemez, also with seven pueblos; three villages at Aguas Calientes, exact location unknown; Yunque-yunque, probably corresponding to San Juan, one of the present Tewa villages; Picuris; and Taos. Closely related to these groups, but situated in the adjacent Pecos drainage, was the pueblo of Cicuye, or Pecos, the easternmost occupied pueblo (Figure 1). As an archeological region, the northern Rio Grande may be defined as a roughly rectangular area extending from a line through Isleta in the south, and the Colorado line on the north; and from the Canadian River on the east, to the Rio Puerco and Rio Chama on the west (Figure 1). Physiographically this area is complex, containing features of the Basin and Range, Southern Rocky Mountain, and Colorado Plateau provinces. The aboriginal occupation was confined largely to the broad alluvial valley found within the Rio Grande Depression, a tectonic unit belonging to the Basin and Range province, and the adjacent tributary streams. The Rio Grande Depression extends northward well up into southern Colorado, separating the southern Rockies into two prongs: an eastern prong-the Sangre de Cristo Range, a steep anticlinal uplift, and a western prong-the Nacimiento-Brazos-Conejos-San Juan system. In part, the structure of the western prong is obscured by extensive volcanics (Northrop in Colbert and Northrop 1950: 41). The higher elevations (above 7,500 feet) were not permanently occupied, so far as is presently known, but were utilized for hunting. The Upper Sonoran life zone embraces almost all of the occupied area. It is characterized by extensive open country of grama grass and sagebrush, and forested areas of pinyon and juniper. Precipitation is meager-averaging less than twenty inches in much of the area-and specialized farming techniques, either floodwater farming or irrigation, are required for the successful practice of agriculture.