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 Living
at the Dunes
Imagine: you are standing on the edge of a shallow lake, surrounded by
cattails and birdsong. The dunes hover on the horizon to the north. You're
carrying a small fiber pouch filled with sharp flakes of stone, and you're
wearing very little-to what time do you belong? Or again, it's a summer
day and you're bridling your horse at Montville, Colorado and listening
to the flies buzz. You wear the blue and gold of a cavalryman. When and
where are you? And once again: you're digging a shallow pit in the side
of an old grass-covered dune. Carefully you photograph the layers of different
colored sandy soils you observe before digging deeper. What are you doing-and
why?
Students in the future may be able to identify all three of the characters
sketched above as people who lived part of their lives at the Great Sand
Dunes, thanks to a four-year research project that began summer 2000.
"This is a pretty neat project," states Resource Specialist Fred Bunch.
"It's really a chance to look at all kinds of different reasons that all
kinds of different people visited the dunes over a long, long time." Bunch
is coordinating this project, but it's an interdisciplinary group of researchers
and volunteers who are making it happen, including scientists who specialize
in archeology, anthropology, geology, ethnography, and the Great Sand
Dunes staff.
Traditionally, Great Sand Dunes National Park has been known as a
'geology' park - one where the most obvious stories revolve around the
landscape and its formation. Questions about the dunes and how they formed
continue to be some of the most commonly asked. However, local history
tells the human side of the story as well; there is plenty of oral and
written evidence of people visiting, passing by, or living for a time
near the dunes. The Great Sand Dunes Eolian System Archaeological and
Ethnographic Project is an attempt to better understand how people have
interacted with the land around the dunes over time.
Some of the basic questions this project addresses and the researchers
involved include:
- How have people through time used what appears, at first glance, to
be a constantly changing landscape? Dr. Richard Madole is a geomorphologist,
one who studies the formation and evolution of landforms. He is concentrating
on the 'eolian system'-that is, the wind influenced sand deposits-with
a focus on understanding how the dunes, sand sheet, and sabkha have
changed over time, and when those changes occurred. With that data,
he and his colleagues can then consider how those changes could have
affected people in the area.
- How has climate change affected how people lived near the dunes over
the past 13,000 years? Drs. Pegi Jodry and Dennis Stanford, a wife and
husband team of archaeologists from the Smithsonian Institution, have
been working in the San Luis Valley for years. In summer 2000 and 2001,
they surveyed or excavated several sites near springs on the Medano
Ranch, just west of the main dunefield. "The Medano Ranch is really
a wonderful opportunity," says Dr. Jodry. "We can gather data about
human use there from Clovis times [about 12,000 years ago] to the present.
It's amazing to think about, but the larger story of ancient humans
in the San Luis Valley is really about how they adapted to the changing
availability of water. As wetlands expanded or contracted over time,
people used different options for making a living." For more on Pegi's
and Dennis' work in the San Luis Valley and beyond, see the December
2000 issue of the National Geographic Magazine and Volume 2 (1) of American
Archaeology Magazine.
- How were piņon-juniper forests of foothills used through time? Piņon-juniper
forests offer plentiful resources to hunters and gatherers-piņon nuts,
fuel, habitat for game animals-and so can give glimpses of how people
in the past made their living near the dunes. Archaeologists Ted Hoefer
and Marilyn Martorano and their teams began surveying known sites in
the piņon-juniper forest of the foothills east of the dunefield in summer
2000, after a wildfire had burned over many of the sites. In summer
2001, they continued their work and included Denton Springs and Montville,
both sites that were occupied or used by ancient people as well as more
modern ranchers, settlers, park visitors, and park staff.
- What do American Indians living today have to say about the dunes
and the San Luis Valley? Ethnographer David White began contacting tribes
with ties to the San Luis Valley in 2000, initially focusing on the
Jicarilla Apache, the Tewa Pueblo, and the Ute as groups known to have
traditionally used or visited the area. In the next phase of his research,
he hopes to contact the Tiwa and Towa Pueblos, the Navajo, the Comanche,
Cheyenne, and Arapaho. For some of the people, the connection is not
so much one of subsistence as spirituality-the Jicarilla Apache still
collect sand from the dunes to create sand paintings used in healing
ceremonies, and the Tewa regard the San Luis Lakes, just south of the
dunes, as an important part of their creation story. Dr. White is quick
to point out that the ethnographic story of the area is much larger
than the current project, and could easily include the descendants of
other tribes as well as of the European, Hispanic, and Asian people
who settled in the San Luis Valley in the last few centuries.
Want to learn more about who was here, when, and why?
- Pick up a copy of "The Hourglass" at the Visitor Center, for a summary
of some of the findings from the archeology project described above.
- Ask at the Visitor Center to see the video "Sacred Trees" which features
members of the Ute tribe describing how ponderosa pine trees in the
monument were used by their ancestors.
- Consider purchasing "A Colorado Pre-History: A Cultural Context for
the Rio Grande Basin", authored by several of the researchers mentioned
here. Available at the Visitor Center bookstore, and may be found in
your local library.
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