Hawkins Preserve
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Hawkins Preserve is a property within the city limits of
Cortez, Colorado Cortez () is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Montezuma County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 8,766 at the 2020 United States Census. History In 1886, the town was built ...
. It is protected by a conservation easement held by the Montezuma Land Conservancy. The property for the preserve was donated to the Cortez Cultural Center in the 1990s by Jack Hawkins which includes: * Biological and botanical resources in a pinion-juniper woodland that is bounded by sandstone potholes and McElmo Creek. * Prehistoric archaeological sites.


Nature preserve

Hawkins Preserve is a natural museum on 120 acres including seven ecological zones:''Vegetarian Communities''.
Cortez Cultural Center. 2011. Retrieved 9-26-2011.
* Piñon-juniper woodland or Pygmy forest *
Sagebrush steppe Sagebrush steppe is a type of shrub-steppe, a plant community characterized by the presence of shrubs, and usually dominated by sagebrush, any of several species in the genus '' Artemisia''.Rimrock Rimrock is the sheer rock wall at the upper edge of a plateau, canyon, or geological uplift. It may refer to either the rock formation or to the rock itself. Rimrock may be composed of almost any stone—basalt, gneiss, granite, sandstone, et ...
* Alluvial bottomland * Riparian corridor and intermittent streams * Post-disturbance and dunes


History


Early people

Hunter-gather 8,000 B.P. to AD 1 :Evidence from the
Hovenweep National Monument Hovenweep National Monument is located on land in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah, between Cortez, Colorado and Blanding, Utah on the Cajon Mesa of the Great Sage Plain. Shallow tributaries run through the wide and deep canyons into t ...
, west of Cortez, indicates that there were Paleo-Indians hunter-gatherer and people of the Archaic period as early as 8,000 years ago.''Hovenweep Visitor Guide''
National Park Service. Retrieved 9-20-2011.
Gibbon, Guy E.; Ames, Kenneth M. (1998
''Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: An Encyclopedia''.
p. 377. .
The ancestors of the
Mesa Verde Mesa Verde National Park is an American national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in the United States. Established ...
Pueblo people hunted and lived in a difficult terrain, traversed deep canyons and areas of few animals and limited vegetation, and managed limited access to water - which made life difficult and limited the size of their hunt groups. They gathered seeds and fruit from wild plants to supplement their diet.Wenger, Gilbert R. (1991) 980 ''The Story of Mesa Verde National Park''. Mesa Verde Museum Park, Colorado: Mesa Verde Museum Association. p. 27. . Basket Makers AD 1 to 550 :The people living in the Four Corners region were introduced to
maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
and basketry through
Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...
n trading about 2,000 years
Before Present Before Present (BP) years, or "years before present", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Becau ...
Able to have greater control of their diet through cultivation, the hunter-gatherers lifestyle became more sedentary as small disperse groups began cultivating maize and squash. They also continued to hunt and gather wild plants.''History & Culture''.
National Park Service. Retrieved 9-20-2011.
Wenger, Gilbert R. (1991) 980 ''The Story of Mesa Verde National Park''. Mesa Verde Museum Park, Colorado: Mesa Verde Museum Association. pp. 27-30. . :They were named "Basket Makers" for their skill in making baskets for storing food, covering with pitch to heat water, and using to toast seeds and nuts. They wove bags, sandals, belts out of yucca plants and leaves - and strung beads. They occasionally lived in dry caves where they dug pits that they lined with stones to store food. These people were ancestors of the pueblo people of the Hovenweep pueblo settlement and Mesa Verde.Rohn, Arthur H.; Ferguson, William M. (2006) ''Puebloan ruins of the Southwest.'' University of New Mexico Press. p. 148. .


Hawkins Preserve residents

Modified Basket Makers 550 to 750 :This era resulted in the introduction of pottery which reduced the number of baskets that they made and eliminated the creation of woven bags. The simple, gray pottery allowed them a better tool for cooking and storage. Beans were added to the cultivated diet. Bows and arrows made hunting easier and thus the acquisition of hides for clothing. Turkey feathers were woven into blankets and robes. Developmental Pueblo 750 to 1100 :Pueblo buildings were built with stone, windows facing south, and in U, E and L shapes. The buildings were located more closely together and reflected deepening religious celebration. Towers were built near kivas and likely used for look-outs. Pottery became more versatile, including pitchers, ladles, bowls, jars and dishware for food and drink. White pottery with black designs emerged, the pigments coming from plants. Water management and conservation techniques, including the use of reservoirs and silt-retaining dams also emerged during this period. :Like the people at
Hovenweep National Monument Hovenweep National Monument is located on land in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah, between Cortez, Colorado and Blanding, Utah on the Cajon Mesa of the Great Sage Plain. Shallow tributaries run through the wide and deep canyons into t ...
,
Canyon de Chelly National Monument Canyon de Chelly National Monument ( ) was established on April 1, 1931, as a unit of the National Park Service. Located in northeastern Arizona, it is within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation and lies in the Four Corners region. Reflecting on ...
, and the Mesa Verde village communities moved from mesa tops to the heads of canyons about 1100. Great Pueblo period 1100 to 1300 :People, generally considered part of the
Mesa Verde Mesa Verde National Park is an American national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in the United States. Established ...
branch of the northern San Juan Pueblo (Anasazi) culture, transitioned from their disperse housing and began building pueblos in the late 12th century alongside springs or other water sources near or at the canyon heads. Most of the pueblo building was conducted, about the same time as the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings, between 1230 and 1275 when there were about 2,500 residents. The Hovenweep architecture and pottery was like that of Mesa Verde. :About 1160, area residents, such as those at Mesa Verde and Hovenweep, began building larger pueblo residential complexes, up to 3 story towers, dams, and reservoirs. They moved their fields into areas where water could be controlled. They also built large stone towers, living quarters and other shelters to safeguard springs and seeps. The stone course pueblos and towers exhibit expert masonry skills and engineering. The builders did not level foundations for their structures, but adapted construction designs to the uneven surfaces of rock slabs. These stone pueblos were referred to as castles by 19th-century explorers.''Little Ruin Canyon Trail Guide.''
National Park Service. Retrieved 9-20-2011.

National Park Service. Retrieved 9-20-2011.

National Park Service. Retrieved 9-20-2011.

National Park Service. Retrieved 9-20-2011.


Post-Pueblo Native American tribes 1300 to 1700

After 1300 hunter-gatherers, ancestors of the Ute and Navajo, moved into the southwestern
Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
and southeastern
Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
and came to inhabit the region.''The Post-Pueblo Period: A.D. 1300 to Late 1700s.''
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. 2011. Retrieved 9-26-2011.
* The ancestors to the Navajo were one of the tribes of the southern division of the Athabaskan language family that migrated south from Alaska and northwestern Canada, most likely traveling through the Great Basin. The Navajo ancestors were in the area after 1300, but at least by the early 16th century. * The people from who the Ute descended arrived in the area from the west in this period from 1300 to the 18th century. The Ute's ancestors are hunter-gatherers who in the 12th century began migrating east from the present southern California area into a large hunter-gathering territory as far east as the Great Plains and in the canyons and mountains of eastern Utah and Colorado. During this period, the Spanish colonial reach extended to northern New Mexico, where they settled in the 16th century. They introduced items for trade, such as guns and horses, new and deadly diseases, and cultural influence in the forms of religion, language, and forms of government. In the 18th century Spanish missionaries visited the area looking for a route to Spanish missions in California. One of the expeditions was that of Spanish friars Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez who traveled from New Mexico, through western Colorado to Utah.''Dominquez and Escalante Expedition, 1776.''
UintahBasintah.org, which cites Chavez Waner's ''The Dominguez and Escalante Journal'' published in the University of Utah Press in 1995.


European and American settlement 18th century to present

The first
Anglo Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from, the Angles, England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to peopl ...
American people arrived in the early 1800s, starting with trappers. With the discovery of precious ores in the last decades of the 19th Century, miners and other settlers moved into the region.''The Historic Period: Late A.D. 1700s to Mid-1900s.''
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. 2011. Retrieved 9-26-2011.
The Hawkins Preserve includes land that was near a ranch owned by Henry Mitchell. On his land is an archaeological site of 9 medium-sized pueblos called " Mitchell Springs". By the mid-19th century the United States government and Native American tribes were at war over land ownership. People were forced to leave their homelands. The Navajo had moved south and the Ute territory was significantly reduced.


Notable sites


Excavations


Lewis Henry Morgan

Lewis H. Morgan Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social ev ...
visited Montezuma Valley in 1878 during one of his trips through the
American Southwest The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado ...
. At that time he made notes and maps of archaeological sites at the current Hawkins Preserve and nearby Mitchell Springs. Within the Hawkins Preserve he recorded cliff dwellings found along McElmo Canyon. The site included groups of several small chambers just above the canyon bottom. Nearby is a corral that held cattle, sheep or other livestock. It was clearly occupied some time after European American settlement, and possibly before then. The Mitchell Springs site, near Hawkins Preserve, consists of 9 medium-sized pueblos and believed to have occupied up to 1,000 people at its height. The site shows occupancy from the Basket Makers II period through late Pueblo III period.


J.A. Halasi

In 1977 J.A. Halasi conducted an archaeological inventory and identified 2 prehistoric scatters and a large
pre-historic Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
ruin. The large ruin was a rubble
mound A mound is a heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded area of topographically higher ...
partially excavated to determine that were 2
kiva A kiva is a space used by Puebloans for rites and political meetings, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, "kiva" means a large room that is circular and underground ...
depressions, diagnostic pot sherds and midden deposits. The site seemed to be from the Pueblo II period.


Bruce Bradley

Bruce Bradley identified an additional 21 sites during an archaeological survey in 2000. The sites are from the Basket Maker II, Pueblo II, Pueblo II periods and unknown pueblo and pre-historic periods. In addition to dwellings, there were also an alcove room with pictographs, 3 check dams, a field house, grinding areas, hearths, and artifacts.


Mona C. Charles

Mona Charles led a group of
Fort Lewis College Fort Lewis College is a Public university, public Liberal arts education, liberal arts college in Durango, Colorado. Because of its unique origins as a military fort turned Indian boarding school turned state public school, FLC follows a 1911 ma ...
students through an archaeological study in 2006. During that time they completed: * Limited, low-disruption excavation to collect artifacts, which were sent to
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is a research center and "living classroom" located in southwestern Colorado, US, which offers experiential education programs for students and adults. Crow Canyon is a center for archaeological research, educa ...
for analysis * Electric resistivity and magnetometry technology surveys to identify ruins below the surface *
Total station A total station (TS) or total station theodolite (TST) is an electronic/optical instrument used for surveying and building construction. It is an electronic transit theodolite integrated with electronic distance measurement (EDM) to measure ...
and
Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...
(GPS) maps


State Historic Fund Grant

In 2006 a State Historic Fund Grant administered by the
Colorado Historical Society History Colorado is a historical society that was established in 1879 as the State Historical Society of Colorado, also known as the Colorado Historical Society. History Colorado is a 501(c)(3) organization and an agency of the State of Colorado un ...
was provided to study the main site in Hawkins Preserve.''State Historical Fund Grants''
Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Colorado Historical Society. Retrieved 9-24-2011.


See also

Other neighboring Ancient Pueblo sites in Colorado *
Anasazi Heritage Center The Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum (formerly the Anasazi Heritage Center) located in Dolores, Colorado, is an archaeological museum of Native American pueblo and hunter-gatherer cultures. Two 12th-century archaeological sites, ...
*
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is a national monument protecting an archaeologically-significant landscape located in the southwestern region of the U.S. state of Colorado. The monument's are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, ...
*
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is a research center and "living classroom" located in southwestern Colorado, US, which offers experiential education programs for students and adults. Crow Canyon is a center for archaeological research, educa ...
*
Hovenweep National Monument Hovenweep National Monument is located on land in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah, between Cortez, Colorado and Blanding, Utah on the Cajon Mesa of the Great Sage Plain. Shallow tributaries run through the wide and deep canyons into t ...
*
Mesa Verde National Park Mesa Verde National Park is an American national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in the United States. Established ...
*
Yucca House National Monument Yucca House National Monument is a United States National Monument located in Montezuma County, Colorado between the towns of Towaoc (headquarters of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe) and Cortez, Colorado. Yucca House is a large, unexcavated Ancestr ...
Other cultures in the Four Corners region *
Trail of the Ancients The Trail of the Ancients is a collection of National Scenic Byways located in the U.S. Four Corners states of Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. These byways comprise: *The Trail of the Ancients National Scenic Byway in San Juan County, Utah; *The ...
*
List of ancient dwellings of Pueblo peoples Hundreds of Ancestral Puebloan dwellings are found across the American Southwest. With almost all constructed well before , these Puebloan towns and villages are located throughout the geography of the Southwest. Many of these dwellings inclu ...
Early American cultures *
List of prehistoric sites in Colorado This list of prehistoric sites in Colorado includes historical and archaeological sites of humans from their earliest times in Colorado to just before the Colorado historic period, which ranges from about 12,000 BC to AD 19th century. The Perio ...
* Ancestral Puebloans *
Oasisamerica cultures Oasisamerica is a term that was coined by Paul Kirchhoff (who also coined "Mesoamerica") and published in a 1954 article, and is used by some scholars, primarily Mexican anthropologists, for the broad cultural area defining pre-Columbian sout ...
* Paleo-Indians


References


External links


Hawkins PreserveCortez Cultural Center
{{Coord, 37.33412, -108.59355, type:landmark_region:US-CO, display=title Protected areas of Montezuma County, Colorado Nature reserves in Colorado Archaeological sites in Colorado