New Mexico Native American Timeline

The Paleoindian Period: 23,000 to 6000 B.C

 Fossilized footprints were made between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago along the shores of an ice age lake (Otero) that once filled the Tularosa Basin in south-central New Mexico, in what is now White Sands National Park. (Grass seeds embedded in an ancient human footprint was used for radiocarbon dating

Imagine a world of snow and ice, when glaciers covered large parts of North America and huge animals, now extinct, roamed the land. The time is the late Ice Age—also known as the Pleistocene—and humans have entered the North American continent for the first time.

11,500 – 11,000 BCE Clovis Culture

The Clovis appeared at the end of the Glacier Period. Spear points resembling flint points were found associated with Ice Age man in Europe used in killing megafauna.

The only human burial that has been directly associated with tools from the Clovis culture includes the remains of an infant boy researchers named Anzick-1. Paleogenetic analyses of Anzick-1's ancient nuclear, mitochondrial, and Y-chromosome DNA reveal that Anzick-1 is closely related to modern Native American populations, which lends support to the Beringia hypothesis for the settlement of the Americas; Blackwater Draw, NM.

11,000 - 9,000 BCE   Folsom Culture

Galisteo Basin – bison lookout station 6,000 yrs. ago

George McJunkin an ex-slave cowboy found Clovis lithics in Wild Horse Arroyo in 1908 where 23 bison were killed and butchered about 9000 BC. Later on Carl Schwachheim a local blacksmith and amateur "bone hunter" found a fluted spear point imbedded in a bison rib. In 1926, archaeologist Jesse Figgins from the Denver Museum (now the Denver Museum of Nature and Science) arrived at the site to begin excavations. Figgins discovered a light, fluted projectile point buried between two of the bison's ribs, thus establishing a clear association of the point with the species of bison that had been extinct for approximately 10,000 years.

 

Archaic: 6000 to 500 B.C.

The climate became a lot warmer and drier. Many of the large animals that were around earlier, including mammoths and mastodon were no longer around. 

11,500 – 9,000 BCE  Archaic - Early Basketmaker

            Mesa Verde, CO area - a domed structure

            Galisteo Basin – 3,000 yrs ago (hunter-gathers along the Galisteo Creek)

            Pecos area – 5 hunting sites; 8 in nearby mountains; 3 pit houses from later part of the period

 

9,000 BCE – 50 CE Early Basketmaker II

            7000 – 1000 Chaco Canyon (Atlatl Cave) + 70 campsites

            1500 B.C. area used as a trade route for turquoise, malachite and lead

            Zuni Pueblo – occupied for 3,000 to 4,000 years (speak Zuni – related to Mogollon people)

 

5,440 BCE - 460 CE Oshara Tradition in New Mexico and Colorado

Basketmaker II: 500 B.C. to A.D. 500

For several thousand years, people were on the move, walking to wherever the food happened to be. But as people become dependent on agriculture—especially corn—the seeds of Pueblo culture are planted                            

50 – 500  Late Basketmaker II

            Early Chaco Canyon

 

500 – 750  Basketmaker III

Great technological and social changes occured. Things that later Pueblo people would take for granted—like cooking pottery and the bow and arrow

            Mesa Verde, CO - small groupings of pit houses on mesa top

            Chaco Canyon – 450-700 there were more than 200 sites with 1-20 pit houses w/great Kiva

            Pojoaque Pueblo – early settlements were found; it was resettled in 1706 after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680

 

750 – 900   Pueblo I

            850 multi-storied buildings w/high ceilings; larger rooms; elaborate kivas; roads from Center

            Chimney Rock, CO- (Chaco influence)

             Hovenweep, CO & Utah

             Mesa Verde, CO

             Canyon de Chelly, AZ

            Chaco Canyon

 

800 - pit houses in Pecos

 900 – 1150  Pueblo II

A vast network centered on Chaco Canyon, 100 miles to the south of Mesa Verde. It connected the Pueblo people of the Mesa Verde region with new people, new ideas, and new goods from far beyond their traditional homeland.

 

            More community buildings; generally made of stone masonry; standardized kivas great

             Kivas; towers with underground access to a kiva or look-out post

            Canyon de Chelly, AZ

            Chimney Rock, CO- (Chaco influence)

             Hovenweep, CO & Utah

             Mesa Verde, CO

            Aztec Pueblo - (Chaco influence)

            Chaco Canyon - thought to have had 1,200 people there during its height

            Pecos - originally built around 1100

            Acoma Pueblo – built around 1144; speak Keres

           

1150 – 1350  Pueblo III   The Great Pueblo Period”

By A.D. 1250, almost everyone in the Mesa Verde area had left their farmsteads and moved into the community centers, resulting in the formation of large villages. Most of those villages were located in canyon settings—around canyon heads or in rock alcoves high above the canyon floors.

 

            Large multi-storied buildings; cliff-dwellings; by end of period people of Four Corners migrated south into larger, centralized pueblos in central and southern Arizona and New Mexico

            Bandelier - Tyounyi (Cochiti people), Tsankawi (San Ildefonso people)

            Mesa Verde, CO –[by 1300 Four Corners was abandoned - Great Drought 1276-1299(23 yrs.)]; some may have moved into the Galisteo Basin to join Tanoans

            Canyon de Chelly, AZ

            Casa Grande, AZ - (Hohokam influence)

            Chimney Rock, CO - (Chaco influence)

            Hovenweep, CO & Utah

            Aztec Pueblo - (Chaco influence)

            Pecos area – 12-15 early dwellings (50-100 rooms)

            Puye Cliff Dwellings- (Santa Clara people)

            Chaco – [(Great Drought 1125 – 1180 (55 yrs.)]

            Galisteo Basin – Lamy Junction Community (1200AD-1325AD); after 1300 – Southern Tewa of Pueblo Galisteo, San Cristobal Pueblo, Pueblo Colorado, Pueblo Largo, Pueblo Blanco, Pueblo She, Colina Verde, (San Marcus was Keres)

            Northern Tewas – Nambe, San Ildefonso, Santa Cara, San Juan (Ohkay Owingeh) & Tesuque Pueblos

            Zia Pueblo - speak Keres; migrated from Chaco around 1250

            Isleta Pueblo – established in 1300s; speak southern Tiwa

            Hopi Pueblo, AZ – speak Hopi a Uto-Aztecan language; Hopi-Tewa - Hano people arrived from the Galisteo area after the Pueblo Revolt in 1680

            Picuris Pueblo – migrated from Pot Creek Pueblo about 1250; speak northern Tiwa

            Taos Pueblo – migrated from Pot Creek Pueblo about 1250; speak northern Tiwa

 

1350 – 1600 Pueblo IV

            Ancient Puebloans abandoned Colorado & Utah areas and migrated south to Pecos and

            Rio Grande valleys; Spanish entered NM (Coronado 1540)

            San Felipe, Santa Domingo, Sandia, Santa Ana & Cochiti Pueblos

            Pecos area – 1350 Cicuye built; Forked Lightening & Arrowhead Pueblos - 1200 AD to 1450 AD

            Bandelier – 1400s - Tsankawi (San Ildefonso people)

 

1300's Utes entered Utah and Colorado (kin to Shoshones and Paiutes)

 

1400's - Athabaskans (Navajos & Apaches) entered the Southwest from northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska

 

 

1600 – present  Pueblo V

            Many notable pueblo sites were abandoned including:

            Bandelier

            Casa Grande, AZ

            Pecos – people left in 1838

            Jemez – had returned by 1706; speak Towa; Pecos survivors moved there in 1838

            Puye Cliff Dwellings, Salinas Pueblos of Humanos, Abo, Chilili, Tajique, Tabira and Quarai

After Vargas returned in the 1700's:

Zunis merged into one village

Piros and Isletas stayed in El Paso until they were given land in New Mexico

Sandia, Puray and Almeda Puebloans fled to Hopi

Islatas came back in 1712; Sandia in 1748

Jacona, Cuyamunge north of Santa Fe and the Galisteo Pueblos of San Lazaro and San Cristobal were permanently abandoned

Refugees from Cieneguilla, Santo Domingo, Cochiti and Zia went to Acoma

Leguna, formed mainly by refugees, was established in 1699

Pueblo of Galisteo was abandoned in the 1780's

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  There are currently 19 pueblos in New Mexico:

8 Eight Northern:

Taos - Tiwa

Picuris - Tiwa

Santa Clara - Tewa

Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan) - Tewa

Pojoaque - Tewa

Tesuque - Tewa

San Ildefonso - Tewa

Nambe - Tewa

 

10 Southern:

Cochiti - Keres

Kewa (Santo Domingo) - Keres

Sandia - Tiwa

San Felipe - Keres

Santa Ana - Keres

Zia - Keres

Jemez - Towa

Laguna - Keres

Acoma - Keres

Isleta - Tiwa

 

Zuni - Zuni


Other New Mexico Native-American Tribes that have influenced New Mexico’s history

Apaches
Navajos (Dine)
Comanches – no longer in the state as a tribe
Utes - no longer in the state as a tribe


The History of Pecos Pueblo


Return to A History of New Mexico