The problem archaeologists face
Archaeology is one of the main outside sources for the history of Apachean ancestors, but it faces a real difficulty. The people in question were, for much of their history, mobile. They lived in shelters made from wood, brush and hides, used tools that were also used by other peoples, and often camped in places for short periods. Such lives leave little behind. The repeated “Apache” in this article’s title is only a quirk of the title; the subject is what the physical evidence can and cannot show about early Apachean presence in the Southwest and on the Plains.
What archaeologists look for
Researchers look for several kinds of evidence, none of which is conclusive alone.
- Shelters and camps. Remains of structures, such as postholes, stone rings and hearths, may mark camps. Wickiup-type shelters, made of poles and brush, disappear quickly, so few survive in a form that can be identified. The article on Apache wickiup and tipi homes describes the traditional dwellings themselves.
- Cooking features. Roasting pits used for agave and other foods are found in many places, and mescal roasting appears in the record of several peoples, so these pits are not on their own a marker of one group.
- Pottery. Some Apachean groups made distinctive plain utility pottery, as described in the entry on Apache pottery. Pottery is useful because it can sometimes be traced to a style and a time, but ceramic traditions overlapped and exchanged ideas.
- Stone tools and projectile points. These types are shared among many peoples and change slowly, which makes it hard to assign them to one nation.
- Rock art and other objects. Interpretations of these are often uncertain.
Dating methods
Several methods give dates, each with limits.
Radiocarbon dating measures the decay of carbon in organic remains such as charcoal. It gives a range of probable ages, not an exact year, and the range can be wide for certain periods. Tree-ring dating (dendrochronology) can pinpoint the year a tree was cut when preserved wood is available, and in some parts of the Southwest the method has been very valuable. When it works, it can provide a precise year, but it depends on finding well-preserved wood, and the date shows when a tree was cut, not necessarily when the structure was used, since old timbers can be reused. Other techniques, such as dating of certain stone surfaces, exist but are used less often and have their own uncertainties.
Sites that figure in the discussion
A few categories of sites are often mentioned in scholarly discussions. They are described in general terms here, since details are debated and some locations are protected.
Plains sites. The Dismal River culture, found in parts of Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas and nearby areas and generally dated to the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, is often linked by researchers to Apachean ancestors who are associated with the Plains Apache. The identification is not unanimous. The Dismal River question and the protohistoric Apache record are discussed together in other articles. Sites such as the one at El Cuartelejo in western Kansas are also connected in the literature with Apachean peoples and with Pueblo refugees of the late seventeenth century.
Northern and intermountain sites. Some caves and shelters in Utah and nearby areas have produced items, including moccasin-like footwear, that some researchers have connected to Athabaskan-speaking peoples in earlier centuries. Others dispute the link, and so the sites are best viewed as suggestive rather than settled.
Southwestern sites. In parts of northwestern New Mexico and neighboring regions, tree-ring dates from structures and campsites have been used in arguments about early Navajo and Apache presence. In Arizona and southern New Mexico, researchers have also studied camps and shelters that they link to Apachean groups of later periods. Many of these sites fall within the era of Spanish and later contact, which is better documented.
What the evidence can and cannot say
Archaeology can show that people with a certain material culture lived in an area at a certain time. It is much harder to show that those people were the ancestors of a particular modern nation. Several limits matter:
- Identification. Without writing or clear links, assigning remains to a named people depends on interpretation, and experts differ.
- Preservation. The absence of Apachean sites in an area does not show that nobody was there; the evidence may have decayed or not yet been found.
- Sampling. Only a small share of possible sites has been excavated or dated.
- Mixing. Groups traded, married and moved, so objects and styles crossed boundaries.
- Perspective. Archaeological accounts are built from outsiders’ methods and do not replace the knowledge held in Apache communities.
Because of these limits, estimates of the earliest Apachean presence vary. Readers should treat any single date given as approximate. The broader debate is set out in the pillar article on Apachean arrival in the Southwest.
Respecting sites and communities
Archaeological sites on tribal and public lands are protected by law, and digging, collecting or removing artifacts can be a crime. Many sites are also sacred or sensitive places for living communities, and the precise locations of some are deliberately not publicized. Museum collections and the return of human remains and cultural items to tribes under laws such as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) are part of the same story; see the article on NAGPRA Apache repatriation. Visitors who come across artifacts should leave them where they are and consult the managing agency or nation. More general archaeological context appears in the overview of Apache archaeology and the earlier history of the region.