A Brief History of the Area
La Junta's Remarkable Past
by Andy Cloud
Soon after Spaniards visited the area where the modern-day towns of Presidio, Texas and Ojinaga, Chihuahua are located [see locator map below], they began referring to the confluence of the Rio Grande and Rio Conchos as La Junta de los Rios. Translated, this phrase means “the joining of the rivers” (nowadays often shortened to La Junta). Areas along the rivers teem with life compared to the surrounding stark desert environs, and it was within these relatively lush settings that prehistoric inhabitants founded villages and began farming about 800 years ago.
Farming La Junta Indians had endured life along the Rio Grande and Rio Conchos for over 300 years before the first Spaniards arrived in A.D. 1535. Led by Cabeza de Vaca, this small group of shipwreck survivors passed through La Junta as they walked from the Texas Gulf Coast back to New Spain.
Over 45 years later, several Spanish entradas visited the area on their way to the pueblos in present-day New Mexico. It was not until A.D. 1683-1684 that Spanish missions were established at La Junta; however, attempts to establish missions were severely hampered over the next 80 years by local Indian revolts and by Apache and Comanche raids. The latter stymied settlement of northern New Spain and ultimately led to establishment of a presidio at La Junta in A.D. 1760.
A year later, oppressive Spanish policies had driven over half of the local population from the area. During subsequent years the remaining resident population slowly, but steadily, was assimilated by the Spaniards and then Mexicans, resulting in a blended culture with distinctive languages, food, art, customs and lifestyles.
The study of these cultures began in 1937, when a budding young archaeologist who had just received his B.A. in anthropology from the University of New Mexico examined an open pit on the outskirts of Presidio. About 2 feet below the surface he observed “a horizontal line of ash and charred reeds containing burnt and broken fragments of clay.”
The pit had been excavated by V. J. Shiner, a local archaeological enthusiast, who showed it to J. Charles Kelley – the young archaeologist – then working at Sul Ross State Teacher’s College in Alpine. Kelley discovered that the burnt clay fragments were firehardened pieces of mud dauber nests and that the reeds were part of a buried pithouse. Recognizing the significance of this find, he soon conducted a scientific excavation of the house, and thus were the beginnings of archaeological research at La Junta.
Kelley’s pithouse excavation was within one of the La Junta villages, now referred to as the Millington Site. A dozen or more of these settlements lie buried along the rivers in an area called the La Junta Archaeological District.
In 1938, Kelley began extensive investigations at Millington and at Loma Alta, up the Rio Grande. As a result, a vast amount of information about the village cultures was gathered. Armed with these data, Kelley and his associate, Donald J. Lehmer, proposed a cultural framework for the villagers. Noting patterns in their datasets, they called the overall development the Bravo Valley Aspect, spanning the period from A.D. 1200-1760. Changes in stone tools, ceramics, burials, and house constructions through time were used to divide the “aspect” into discrete periods or phases, and both rectangular and circular house traditions (jacals placed in pits – some as deep as 6 feet below the surface) were recognized.
Kelley renewed his La Junta research after World War II. He synthesized his field and archival work in 1947 with completion of a Harvard University dissertation entitled Jumano and Patarabueye: Relations at La Junta de los Rios, which was published by the University of Michigan in 1986.
An important contribution of his at this time was publication of historical data concerning the La Junta pueblos and correlation of these data with geographical and archaeological features. On-the-ground identification of most of the La Junta pueblos mentioned in Spanish accounts followed, providing an important link between the archaeological and historical records. Kelley hypothesized that the villages were established by a migrant colony of Jornada Mogollon (Puebloan) people – sedentary agriculturalists living in pithouses – who traveled down the Rio Grande from the El Paso area.
In the 1980s and 1990s another La Junta researcher came to the forefront – then State Archeologist Robert J. Mallouf of the Texas Historical Commission. Mallouf directed excavations at hunter-gatherer sites in the district and identified a heretofore unknown culture of the area which he named the Cielo Complex.
From about A.D. 1250-1680, this nomadic aceramic group seasonally occupied base camps at La Junta and are thought by Mallouf to have been trading partners with the villagers. Mallouf ’s work at Cielo Complex and other La Junta sites led him to theorize that Bravo Valley aspect origins could be a result of cultural diffusion – that is, the villages sprang up through the transmission of ideas related to sedentism and agricultural pursuits rather than through an actual migration of peoples. In this theory, the villagers would have been indigenous huntergatherers of the Big Bend who merely adopted certain behaviors and lifeways they had observed in distant places – likely from people either at Casas Grandes in northwestern Chihuahua or in the El Paso area.
In the more recent past, the Center for Big Bend Studies (CBBS) of Sul Ross State University has taken the lead in unraveling the La Junta story. Excavations at the Arroyo de la Presa Site and the Millington Site directed by this author have increased our understanding of the hunter-gatherers and villagers who either lived at or frequented La Junta.
Much of this work has been funded through the CBBS’s Trans-Pecos Archaeological Program (TAP), a research program designed to update the archaeological database of the region and to share those findings with both peers and the general public. Important contributions include a recently completed exhibit about La Junta cultures on the Texas Beyond History webpage and publication of the 2006 Millington investigation.
Data recovered during the CBBS investigations have provided support for theories offered in the past by both Kelley and Mallouf. Modern ceramic analyses indicate that for about the first 250 years of village occupation (circa A.D. 1200-1450) pots were manufactured in distant places and traded to La Junta folks; during subsequent times pottery was locally manufactured. These analyses confirmed Kelley’s thoughts on the subject, expounded almost 70 years ago.
Additionally, chemical analyses of human remains from the Millington Site indicate the villagers ate only small amounts of corn and had to supply most of their foodstuffs through hunting and gathering, providing suggestive evidence in support of Mallouf ’s theory about indigenous La Junta origins.
While much is known of La Junta’s rich past, many pieces of the puzzle remain unanswered. Since these sites are threatened from both natural phenomena (e.g., last year’s flood) and unscrupulous looters, it is imperative that scientific research continue.
Future CBBS efforts at La Junta will include utilizing geophysical remote sensing techniques to locate buried houses and other features. Such techniques have been successful recently, revealing the likely locations of several Spanish missions – for which excavations are now being planned. Only through continued investigations at these important archaeological sites will the complete La Junta story be revealed.
