new acquisition ONE OF THE LARGEST PREHISTORIC PUEBLOS IN THE GALISTEO BASIN PRESERVED

One of the Largest Prehistoric Pueblos in the Galisteo Basin Preserved

Pueblo played an important role in New Mexico’s history.

These standing sandstone masonry walls are found at Las Madres Pueblo. Las Madres, a 14th-century pueblo, is part of the Galisteo Pueblo preserve.

While thousands of people were leaving Chaco Canyon, the San Juan Basin, and Mesa Verde in the greater Four Corners area during the late 12th and 13th centuries, the Galisteo Basin in central New Mexico witnessed the establishment of farming communities. By the beginning of the 14th century, the scattered Galisteo Basin communities coalesced to form eight extremely large pueblos. Galisteo Pueblo is one of these that survived into the Spanish Colonial period, occupied by people the Spanish referred to as Tanos and who are now known as the Southern Tewa.

The pueblo’s landowners, prompted by their concern for the site’s long-term preservation and their desire to have research conducted there, recently donated a preservation easement containing the 62-acre site to the Conservancy. “We are thrilled that we have been able to work with the landowners to permanently protect this site, which is one of the most important in the Southwest,” said Mark Michel, the president of the Conservancy. Galisteo Pueblo, located on the bank of Galisteo Creek, contains an estimated 1,580 ground-floor rooms in 25 adobe roomblocks, and an undetermined number of kivas and plaza areas. Six prominent roomblocks containing about 570 rooms are thought to be the remnants of the site’s historic period dwellings.

Early Spanish documents frequently mention Galisteo Pueblo, sometimes referring to it as the Pueblo Ximena visited by Coronado in 1540. Don Juan de Oñate,

a Spanish general, visited the pueblo in 1598 while establishing mission districts in the area. By 1626, a large Spanish mission with a church and a convento for priests had been built at the pueblo. From the Galisteo mission, priests regularly journeyed to serve nearby San Cristóbal Pueblo and other branches of the Galisteo parish, known as visitas. Over time, Spanish pressures to convert the New Mexico tribes to Catholicism increased, as did demands for grain, produce, and crafts. These circumstances, combined with drought and periodic raiding by the Plains Indians, prompted native peoples to organize the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, a successful uprising that drove the Spanish from New Mexico.

During the revolt, the natives of Galisteo Pueblo killed the resident priests. Some Galisteo Pueblo residents occupied Santa Fe, where many of them were later killed or sold into slavery by Spanish Governor don Diego de Vargas during the reconquest. After 1700, some of the surviving Southern Tewa peoples of the Galisteo Basin migrated to First Mesa, now on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. Their village, named Hano, is still there.

The Spanish re-established Galisteo Pueblo in 1706 under the name Nuestra Señora de los Remedios and forced 90 Indians to resettle there. Smallpox and Comanche raids took their toll however, and toward the end of the century the pueblo’s dwindling inhabitants moved to nearby Santo Domingo Pueblo, a Keresan-speaking village. After 1782, Galisteo was no longer considered to be a living pueblo. In 1912, Nels Nelson, an archaeologist with the American Museum of Natural History in New York who visited and investigated many of the larger Galisteo Basin sites, conducted test excavations at the pueblo and made a site map. This is the only professional excavation undertaken at Galisteo Pueblo, which has tremendous archaeological potential.

“Galisteo Pueblo is one of the most enigmatic of the Galisteo Basin Pueblos,” said Eric Blinman of the Museum of New Mexico’s Office of Archaeological Studies. “Despite the prominent place of the mission at Galisteo Pueblo in the pre-revolt Spanish Colonial occupation in New Mexico, the church has not been located with confidence. There is an excellent potential for investigating the site with remote-sensing approaches, especially working out the details of the historic component.” Las Madres, an isolated 14th-century roomblock containing about 60 rooms located on a prominent sandstone spur just across the creek from Galisteo Pueblo, is also included in the preservation easement. Nelson conducted limited test excavations at the site in 1914 and created a site map. In the early 1960s, archaeologist Bertha Dutton excavated about 85 percent of the site with the intent of documenting the migration of Mesa Verde peoples into the Galisteo Basin. Dutton concluded that migration from Mesa Verde could not account for the founding population of Las Madres.

This past spring a meeting was held to create a long-term management plan for the preserve. The Conservancy, together with the Museum of New Mexico and community volunteers, and in consultation with Santo Domingo Pueblo and other native peoples, plans to create a site map, analyze and rebury human remains, and stabilize exposed and eroding areas of the site. —Tamara Stewart

FEDERAL LEGISLATION

to create an archaeological protection district in the Galisteo Basin passed the Senate in March. The legislation was sponsored by New Mexico Senators Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici. A bill has also been introduced into the House of Representatives by New Mexico Representatives Tom Udall and Heather Wilson.

Galisteo Pueblo