Farmers, Hunters, and Colonists: Interaction between the Southwest and the Southern Plains

Abstract

People follow the cows {bison/, hunting them and tanning their skins to take to the settlements in the winter to sell, since they go there to pass the winter.-CASTANEDA, CHRONICLER OF THE CORONADO EXPEDITION In 1540 the first expedition to explore the Southwest, that of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, witnessed the exchange between eastern border Pueblo and southern Plains populations documented by Castaneda (Winship 1896 1 279). Later expeditions in the sixteenth century, and colonists in the seventeenth, also noted an ongoing Plains-Pueblo trade in foodstuffs and manufactured items. In the twentieth century, historians have analyzed the changes in Plains-Pueblo interaction that resulted from the presence of Spanish colonists and access to their goods, while archaeologists have produced evidence of prehistoric Plains-Pueblo interaction. Although myriad data exist concerning relations between these two regions, no attempt has been made to synthesize this information and to develop evolutionary models of changing Plains-Pueblo interaction over time. Recently, however, Jim Judge and Patty Crown provided the opportunity to bring together a variety of scholars concerned with Plains-Pueblo interaction. At their invitation I organized a conference on this topic involving both archaeologists and historians, Plains scholars and Pueblo scholars. The meeting was held at the Fort Burgwin