By Mary Alice Murphy
At the Thursday morning session of the Oregon-California Trail Southern Trails Chapter meeting at Light Hall on the Western New Mexico University campus, Marilyn Markel of Mimbres talked about trails.
She said many of the same trails that hikers use today were once used by the Mimbres people, as they traveled to trade with other native peoples or to move to other areas.
Markel noted that after the Mimbres people left the area, they moved eastward into the Black Range.
In the early history of the Mimbres people, the story centers on the use of the Mimbres River. "The trails we hike on today are probably the same as those used by the Mimbres people 1,000 years ago."
She showed aerial photos of Old Town, named Mowry City. People who lived there were reusing the same trails and the same water sources as earlier people.
"That's the story of the area-the reuse of the same resources," Markel told those attending the conference.
She said Old Town has been looked at by archaeologists from the University of Texas in Austin. One archaeologist thinks a road from an ancient kiva leading northward may have gone all the way to Chaco.
"We know the people were trading to Casas Grandes and farther into Mexico," Markel said. "Maybe they went as far as Chaco."
She showed a slide of an Escavada black-on-white pot, which is housed at the University of New Mexico Maxwell Museum. The curator has identified it as from Chaco. The pot was found in the Mimbres Valley.
"We have clear evidence that people from Chaco were interacting with the Mimbres people," Markel said. "They were also trading for feathers from scarlet and military macaws, as well as other parrots."
At Old Town, macaw bones have been found, as well as evidence of lots of other birds not native to the Mimbres.
"Today, archaeologists are trying to determine where the trails went," Markel said. "There is lots of evidence of trade. How did the trade goods get here? Trails."
She showed a slide of a pendant in the shape of a macaw, and likely made of turquoise, which might have come from Santa Rita or the Burros Mountains. "Archaeologists have found jet, turquoise, copper and abalone artifacts in the area. Now that we are finding worked copper, archaeologists will try to source it."
The area around Cooke's Peak has many petroglyph sites. "Why are there petroglyph sites in various places? Water."
In a slide of elementary school students at the Mimbres Valley Heritage Site, she pointed out that the path the students walked along were part of the same trail system. "When we do education like this, and the kids can walk in the ancients' footsteps, it brings it home to the students that the past is important and it is important to preserve history."
"You cannot do much outdoors around here without stumbling across something from the past," Markel said.
An audience member asked if chocolate had been found in the area.
"Yes, indeed," Markel said. "On potsherds found at one site, there was evidence of cacao. It was sent to the Hershey's factory, where the evidence of cacao was found. At a recent Mimbres Harvest Festival, we had a project with chocolate. It showed the evidence of theobromine." Theobromine is the principal alkaloid in chocolate.
Cecilia Bell, organizer of the conference and president of the Fort Bayard Historic Preservation Society, told an anecdote about Fort Bayard that related to the Mimbres people.
"An Army wife, asked a Buffalo Soldier to spade a garden for her," Bell said. "He uncovered a full Mimbres pot, which was sent directly to the Smithsonian Institute."
The conference continued on Friday, with other presentations.