A01=Matthew F. Schmader
Author_Matthew F. Schmader
Battlefield archaeology
Category=JHM
Category=NHK
Category=NHWF
Category=NK
Category=WQH
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New Mexico
Piedras Marcada Pueblo
Rio Grande Valley
sixteenth-century warfare
Tiguex War
Tiwa
Vazquez de Coronado
Zuni
Product details
- ISBN 9780826367938
- Dimensions: 216 x 279mm
- Publication Date: 01 Apr 2025
- Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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By the 1530s, Indigenous Pueblo populations in the American Southwest reached tens of thousands of people with a rich culture expressed through stunning architecture, ceramic technology, and ceremonial life. Then, into that world came outsiders—an army of foreigners from the south led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado. Coronado's expedition was sent from Spain's new colony in Mexico, seeking overland routes to Asia. Not finding what they sought, the strangers made steep demands on the Pueblo people, and the Pueblos fought back. First contacts at the western Pueblos of Zuni, Hopi, and Acoma led to open warfare.
Coronado continued eastward into an area settled by ancestors of today's Rio Grande Pueblos, where thousands lived in large villages along the river. The Spanish called the area "Tiguex," which became the overwintering place for Coronado by the end of 1540. Increasing tensions and resistance that winter spilled over into violence in America's earliest named war: the Tiguex War. The largest and most intact battle site of that fierce conflict is known as Piedras Marcadas Pueblo, situated within present-day Albuquerque, New Mexico. Coronado's men were armed with crossbows and muskets while their Mexican Indigenous allies relied on stone arrows and slingstones. The Puebloans mounted a courageous defense of their largest village, piling rocks on the rooftops and hurling them down on the attackers. Today, hundreds of artifacts found at Piedras Marcadas reveal the colliding cultures who fought each other within those ancient walls and plazas that are now silent but were once the focal point of a life-and-death contest for survival.
Coronado continued eastward into an area settled by ancestors of today's Rio Grande Pueblos, where thousands lived in large villages along the river. The Spanish called the area "Tiguex," which became the overwintering place for Coronado by the end of 1540. Increasing tensions and resistance that winter spilled over into violence in America's earliest named war: the Tiguex War. The largest and most intact battle site of that fierce conflict is known as Piedras Marcadas Pueblo, situated within present-day Albuquerque, New Mexico. Coronado's men were armed with crossbows and muskets while their Mexican Indigenous allies relied on stone arrows and slingstones. The Puebloans mounted a courageous defense of their largest village, piling rocks on the rooftops and hurling them down on the attackers. Today, hundreds of artifacts found at Piedras Marcadas reveal the colliding cultures who fought each other within those ancient walls and plazas that are now silent but were once the focal point of a life-and-death contest for survival.
Matthew F. Schmader has been conducting archaeological research in central New Mexico for more than forty years. He has conducted research on sites of every major cultural time period in New Mexico and served as the Albuquerque City Archaeologist for ten years. He is currently an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico.
