CHAPTER 1
TRAILS & TRACES
What do we know about ancient trails traversing the US West & Southwest? Who created them? When? How did they figure in prehistory? and history? When threatened by modern development, who makes decisions about their preservation? What perspectives do these stewards of the past harbor? What does the future hold? Will they survive modern development?
Reaching deep into prehistoric millennia, considerations of ancient trails reflect the point of view of the Tribal Representative, the Archaeologist, and the Anthropologist, the three entities involved in preservation decision making when modern development threatens these ancient resources - when preservation initiatives engender assembly around a conference table.
Walking on Water
Pondering the US, I envision five environmental areas of Human habitation prior to European incursion. The eastern region is unique, Northeast and Southeast exhibiting singular characteristics. Today the Northeast is cold in winter, hot in summer, marked by distinct, vividly colored seasons. Perhaps similar conditions existed prehistorically - allowing a few degrees variance then until now. The Southeast, cloaked in punctuated seasons, offered slightly different but equally attractive opportunities to prehistoric inhabitants. Early populations in both regions enjoyed lush forests, plentiful game, clean, clear water, seasons marking the passage of time. The Northeast remained colder than Southeast and while differing in detail, technological adaptations to both environmental zones developed in parallel, sometimes overlapping, innovation. Appreciating the habitability of both, the Archaeologist today studies local developmental sequences to better understand adaptive strategies of early inhabitants in both eastern areas.
In the Midwest, where the Mississippi harnesses the Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, rivers and numerous contributory tributaries, I envision a third area. Beginning near the Canadian border, extending to the Gulf of California, fertile floodplains interlaced upland forests supporting a rich riverine resource base. Earlier the Hopewell (effigy mound builders) settled atop terrace ribbons along local waterways. The later Mississippian maize agricultural efflorescence occupied the same river terraces generations later, recognizing the identical bounty, support capacity, population carrying capability of this environment.
Early Midwestern populations - including Hopewell and Mississippian - used waterways for transportation, as did their neighbors to the east. Describing a regional dendritic transportation friendly network, movement among resources and settlements using these natural arteries required trifling effort. Given their length, Midwestern waterways provided avenues connecting remote groups and materials, perhaps distant kin or maybe a unique resource from a detached location. Not only were ties maintained to neighbors and kin, connections linked northern extremes near (probably extending into) Canada to the north and the Golfo de Mexico to the south, some arguing reaching into today's Central America. Waterways supplied glue to bind Midwestern groups for a variety of undertakings including subsistence, trade, socialization, warfare, resource gathering, religious pilgrimages – diverse purposes.
I imagine early populations in the West adapting to environmental conditions both north and south. My mental maps picture early northwestern skyscraper forests and undisturbed rivers. Nature provided abundant resources across territories terminating on equally bountiful coast, where early populations thrived atop landforms submerged today.
The Southwest, relatively free of mainstream rivers, was (still is) dry, devoid of liquid amenities enjoyed elsewhere on the continent. Sparse vegetation inhabits desiccated landscapes, frequently ornamented by diminutive Piñon. Although called waterways, Southwestern rivers and tributaries flow as intermittent streams occasionally whipped into frenzied flash floods. The Southwestern resource base stands in stark contrast to other environments, yet inventive early populations thrived given Spartan conditions.
Waterway transportation provides a useful model for social connectivity among ancient populations of the US but does not hold up in the Southwest. There, rivers and streams often contain no water and when present, swell into transient, impassible gully washers. Dry or torrential, most Southwestern and Western waterways were (are) not suitable for navigation and this avenue of transportation so prevalent elsewhere in the continental US, did not exist. Minus waterways but still needing a means of maintaining contact inter- and intra- regionally, ancient Southwestern populations developed a system of pedestrian trails - serving the same functions, meeting the same needs - as waterway based transportation, but expressed on land as a web of transregional footpaths.
Originating in the unfathomable past, these pathways, perpetuated in legend, story, song, paintings, and other representational devices, evoke memories of ancient trails and traces and retain great cultural significance to those whose ancestors created them. To the Archaeologist and Anthropologist, whose entry onto the scene occurred much later than trails or their creators, these became objects of study in their own right. Neither modern discipline, however, shares the appreciation of cultural depth felt by Native Americans who preserve their importance through oral tradition. Taken cumulatively, the Tribal Representative/ Council Delegate, the Archaeologist, and the Anthropologist bring differing perspectives of these early pedestrian pathways to the preservation conference table when evaluating construction impact to ancient cultural remnants threatened by modern expansion.
In the course of modern development, these cultural features, including trails, often collide with modern construction. Physical concurrences may result from planning new home sites, excavating landfills, or expanding transportation infrastructure. Ancient cultural resources also stand threatened by improvement of roads, utility lines, fire suppression burns, or various municipal improvements.
Among resources potentially facing destruction via infrastructure improvement are villages, gathering areas, plant communities, natural outcrops, spiritual places, and these trails. Per mandate of local, state, tribal, or federal legislation, such resources undergo evaluation before ground disturbances, visual impaction, or other disruptive processes occur. The destructive impact of development often requires consideration of these ancient features and formulation of plans for their preservation and management. Done respectfully, plans can mitigate impaction by project related destruction with the goal of preserving these linear artifacts – fingerboards from the past.
Local SW inhabitants developed their own sense of place/territory. Along with this and the need for communication, trade, etc. they devised systems of trails leading through territories whether in prehistoric or more modern times, long before equine or motorized transportation. From extensive work with Native Americans and appreciation of their feelings about their land, I have formulated ideas regarding territoriality. Not land reckoning in the European sense of demarcation of (today) Reservation boundaries with respect to county lines, National Park jurisdictions, or even township and range divisions, but territoriality in the sense of familiarity with land, its resources, its habitability. Not survivability, because – though anthropocentric – Human populations adapt to nearly any environment through clever and sometimes inventive means, and not just survive, but thrive.
I refer to territoriality in the sense of belonging to an environment, feeling at home in it, having generational ties to it, experiencing separation anxiety when away, remembering it and nurturing it in dreams, mythology, song, art, ritual, tradition, through individual and group actions, in outlook and belief. I have come to see modern politically generated perimeter demarcations as little more than scratches on the surface of a grander and temporally more ancient relationship with the land.
Among various past acquaintances, I note a nearly universal respect for decisions made by those who came before. Some call it tradition, history, preservation, common sense, instinct, but nearly everyone recognizes and appreciates choices made by ancestors, be they a Tribal Representative, an Archaeologist, Anthropologist, Historian, tourist, or others. This sensibility is particularly apparent among Native American oral traditions where decisions become foundations for storytellers, singers, and others who – absent written language - orally preserve and transmit knowledge across generations. These choices create a tradition formulated by mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers seen no more clearly than in the Native understanding of the environment and its significance to those who inhabit it.
A common message in these stories recounts the ability of nature to supply resources within different territories, emphasizing the importance of nature in establishment and maintenance of perimeters. These stories also relate the perception of boundaries held by those using these resources extolling their understanding of the wisdom of nature and the need to accept it to survive. But they also relate the mutual willingness of neighboring inhabitants, even though they may politically disagree, to respect shared boundaries for the greater good - for generational perpetuation.
Apparent in the Native American understanding of their environment is this notion of ancestral homage, the acceptance, respect, and proliferation of solutions reached before. While admirably expressed in their cultural world view, ideas about perceived value of resources, their availability, renewability, and utilization are not unique to Native American populations.
The French, establishing their US colonies, recognized the importance of environmental variation, creating boundaries based on the arpent. Ideally an arpent encompasses a narrow slice of land perpendicular to a waterway, extending inland regardless of topography. The French reasoned all landforms were important so included within their arpent are parcels of riverside properties, floodplains and terraces, and segments of cultivatable adjoining hills. Because of the importance of various landforms to them at home (in France) and by extension along the Mississippi from New Orleans to Quebec, they afforded everyone a small piece of each. These were the Man/land decisions made by French ancestors.
The British, occupying a more constricted environment, valued Human settlements and intersections encompassing a network of waterways, villages, roads. Embodying this approach, they organized colonial landforms into townships and ranges, divided into sections, subdivided therein. That system, employed in the US today, categorizes territory based on Human use, on the notion of settlement as the determining factor (hence townships). These were the decisions made by their ancestors, recreated in colonial claims.
The Spanish tended to grant large tracts regardless of topography or community, called land grants. Perhaps in their homeland natural vegetal and water resources were less common requiring considerable acreage to afford adequate support. Generally lacking orientation to waterway, landform, or settlement, and minus the constriction of the island bound British, these large tracts reflect decisions made by Spanish ancestors and still appear on many maps of their settlements in the US West and Southwest, discernable by irregular cartographic orientation. Notably, representations of these colonial mindsets overlaying an already existing web of waterway and footpath based decisions in the US West and Southwest and still appear on maps depicting their ancestral decisions.
The Set
Imagine one of the trails surrounding Palm Springs, homeland of the ACBCI. Developers propose to install a new water transfer system which requires excavation. After reviewing alternatives and selecting a preferred route, environmental, economic, and safety impact assessments begin.
As part of preliminary surveys, the Archaeologist discovered the suggested utility route will intersect a prehistoric trail with a single cairn and two indistinct stone skirted appendages each stretching no more than ca. 1 meter (m). At the end of the proposed construction area, prior disturbances truncate the trail in either direction. Its point of origin and destination remain unclear.
The Archaeologist describes the trail segment as an irregular footworn path compacted by use to a degree inhibiting plant growth. In width, it ranged from 12-18" describing a distinguishable 20 m long line in the sand, extensions no longer discernable beyond this trace.
The cairn consisted of a ˜ 15" high pyramidal stack of stones measuring roughly 18" in diameter. Clearly intentionally created, it contained 26 stones ranging from gravel size to a little smaller than a baseball, all smoothed by eons of wind propelled sand. Matching surrounding stone detritus, all constituent stones appeared local in origin, stacked without mortar. Perhaps rearranged by the San Andreas quivering, they settled into a small, compact pyramidal configuration. The cairn sat immediately outside the footworn path. The field crew found no associated artifacts in proximity, just the ˜ 20 m trail segment. The Archaeologist recorded it as such. To manage it as a significant cultural resource, there will be a meeting around a conference table in the near future. These conditions provide the setting for the trail story.
The Preservation Triumvirate
Behind every decision regarding the fate of a cultural resource threatened by development are three individuals charged with preservation planning.
In one chair is the Tribal Representative bringing experiential knowledge to the conference table. Sitting in the second is the Archaeologist with his kit of preservation legislation bolstered by empirical reasoning. In the third is the Anthropologist offering comparative and interpretive information. On the agenda before them is the trail segment.
The Tribal Representative
Given contact with Native Americans in the West and Southwest, my thoughts about trails evolved, bolstered by Tribal members or their representatives to whom trails are part of their environment. They bring experiential predilections to decision making around the conference table. I have participated in many of these meetings, hearing the Tribal Representative groan as the Archaeologist points to a 3" thick report on the table before them illustrating the 'area of potential effect' of proposed construction. They wince perceptibly on hearing the Archaeologist located xx sites, mapped and photographed them, recorded them using 'state-of-the-art' satellite imaging, collected artifacts, putting them into meticulously labelled brown paper bags, pinpointing their locations, highlighting them in blown up, full color, illustrations displayed around conference room walls.
To the Archaeologist the discovery of a site liberates it from obscurity. He included it in his 3" stack of paper demonstrating it has been identified, documented, and readied for preconstruction consideration. To the Tribal Representative, though, once recorded the site is subject to vandalism, misuse by untrained personnel (perhaps posing as Medicine Men/Women, or Archaeologists) identified to the public, and subject to all the vagaries of an exposed resource.
In the mind of the Tribal Representative, the 3" report is meaningless. It does not show the homeland of the Gods. Where are the origin sites? And the gathering areas? And the trails? They used to be right there. The Stoic, message is clear, these papers do not represent Tribal heritage, the decisions made by elders.
The Tribal Representative recalls stories, songs, myths, pertaining to baskets, herb patches, gathering areas, trails, seasonal cycles, origin sites, distant peoples and resources. They weave memories of neighbors and nature and boundaries into stories of origins and destinations. They provide cognitive windows through which to see the past when the Elders made decisions effecting the Representative's own childhood, knowledge he continues to value and pass to his children. Stories frequently relate communications among peoples situated across broad areas. Perhaps the Tribal Representative recalls the fall fiesta when he was twelve and met that cute girl. ...
Leaning too far back in his chair, the Tribal Representative whiplashes from rêverie. As the Archaeologist delivers supportive statistics, the Representative's mind returns to wondering - musing - about the breadth of trails teaching cross cultural lessons like resource value and uses in one community which differ from those of neighbors. He ponders, thinking about stories of beauty in the eyes of one people compared to preferences of their neighbors. He wonders why the same grass can mean such a different thing woven and colored one way as opposed to another.
