Historic Albuquerque

emains of temporary camps or brush structures.
Ancient sites are exposed occasionally because of
erosion. A few Archaic sites have been uncovered
by the small airport on the west mesa, while actual
living surfaces were revealed by excavation near the
river during the mid-l990s.
The next set of prehistoric phases, starting very
roughly at 500 CE and lasting to around 1500 CE,
include two “Basketmaker”, followed by five
“Pueblo”, periods. Pueblo is actually the Spanish
word for village or people, now used to designate
regional Native Americans whose remote ancestors
lived in small towns. Sometime during the first half
of this chronological stretch, the Anasazi (northern
New Mexico) and Mogollon (southern New
Mexico) inhabitants began to live in larger groups.
Corn-based agriculture did not replace the seasonal
collection of wild plants or hunting, but it did
become much more important. Pottery making
developed, and residential arrangements became
more permanent. Pithouses, huge rooms scooped
out of the earth’s surface, can be detected in the
archeology of the Albuquerque region and beyond.
Later, stone and adobe architecture was used,
eventually distinguishing housing options with
multi-story structures.
Specialists disagree as to just how swiftly the
number of people around the central valley
increased after 1100 CE Famous prehistoric
communities like Chaco Canyon, some of which
contained hundreds of rooms of layered adobe or
stone, are written about more often than sites
close to Albuquerque. Meanwhile the relocation
of Native Americans in northern New Mexico
could have resulted from drought cycles,
succeeded by aggressive newcomers pushing
down from the north, distant ancestors of the
Apaches and Navajos. The Middle Rio Grande
Valley may not have been densely occupied until
1300 CE. The migration of Pueblo farmers to the
lower river region might be explained by a slowly
cooling climate from 1350 to 1750. Even a slight
change affecting the growing season would have
made life at a milder elevation, and along a
heavier drainage, more attractive. This chilly
weather pattern apparently bottomed out during
the 1500s-1700s. In Europe, glaciers advanced,
while scattered collectives of humanity arose
along the Rio Grande’s banks, maturing into
vibrant developed settlements between about
1250 and 1550.
Piedras Marcadas was likely the largest pueblo
of the Tiguex Province (north-central New
Mexico), located on the shoulder of the West
Mesa’s floodplain. This once bustling village of
two or three plazas could have housed thousands
of individuals from the 1300s to the early
1600s. Unfortunately, more than sixty percent of
the archeological sites around Albuquerque have
been destroyed during the past forty years.
❖
A basalt escarpment and
Albuquerque’s volcanoes on the west
side of the Rio Grande, 2005.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS ALFORD.
Chapter I ✦ 5