PREFACE

• what subsistence resources other than bison were exploited by protohistoric groups?• did the Plains Village subsistence pattern persist into the protohistoric period?• how were scheduling conflicts between bison hunting and other subsistence activities resolved?• to what extent was the exploitation of non-bison food resources a response to the constraintson the extensification strategy imposed by the limitations of foot travel and dog transport?• how did subsistence strategies change following the introduction of the horse?Given the mobility constraints discussed in the previous section and the probability that the Pecos Rivervalley was on the margins of the bison range, the emergence of the Plains drainage valleys in the TexasPanhandle as the population center for protohistoric bison hunters seems a logical consequence of theextensification strategy. Whether these centers arose as a result of intensification of the local PlainsVillage populations, an influx of population into the region from other areas including the Pecos Rivervalley, or both is uncertain. In any case, it is clear that the opportunities for researchers in southeasternNew Mexico to address the question posed above are limited. Because it appears that the Plains area ofsoutheastern New Mexico was probably in the westernmost part of the hunting range for bison hunters,protohistoric sites are likely to be limited to hunting camps and processing localities similar to thosedescribed for the Garza occupation at Lubbock Lake (Johnson et al. 1977), and kill sites like those atGarnsey Springs (Speth and Parry 1980) and LA 22107 (Staley et al. 1996). Consequently, the mostappropriate subsistence issues that can realistically be addressed are:• what hunting and butchering/processing tactics were employed by protohistoric bison huntersin southeastern New Mexico?• what were the seasons of use?• how do sites in the region fit into the larger settlement-subsistence strategy?• is movement through the region related to the development of exchange relations with Pueblogroups in the Gran Quivira area and upper Pecos drainage?There is also the general question of whether hunting and gathering groups persisted in the areas west ofthe Pecos River that were not heavily dependent on bison. Late dates on ring middens in the GuadalupeMountains (Katz and Katz 2001) suggest this possibility, but too little data are available for anyspeculation about the nature of the subsistence strategy beyond the suggestions that 1) the hunting andgathering strategies developed during the late Archaic and Ceramic periods would probably haveremained viable options; and 2) that declining population densities in the area by the mid-late fourteenthcentury may have opened new options for any hunting and gathering groups that remained in the region.Finally, ethnographic accounts of the Mescalero Apache in southeastern New Mexico (Basehart 1974)document an adaptation focused on wild resources in the mountains and adjacent lowlands of the region.The time depth for this adaptation is unknown, but it presumably developed during the eighteenth centuryas plains Apache groups were displaced by the Comanches. Evidence for this transition should be part ofthe archaeological record in southeastern New Mexico but, until more reliable criteria are applied to theidentification of early Apache sites (e.g., Seymour 2002), the question cannot be investigated.SETTLEMENT SYSTEMS/MOBILITY STRATEGIESThe overall objective of research under this problem domain is to understand how prehistoric andprotohistoric groups positioned themselves on the landscape in adapting to the changing natural andcultural environment of southeastern New Mexico. Again, the basic questions that must be addressed foreach cultural-temporal period vary depending on the level of inquiry. At the site/component level, thebasic question are:4-44