El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro – Public Perceptions and Management

Summary

Management of the Jornada del Muerto segment of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail over the last 9 years has provided insights into a wide range of behaviors and perceptions about a physical manifestation of history and its meaning and role in our lives. As with many historic/archaeological sites, there is a mythic El Camino as well as an archaeological/historic El Camino. Trail management is sometimes a question of balancing and enhancing and sometimes a question of dispelling and deterrence. The story of the trail goes deeper in time and lasts longer than the three centuries that are cited as its period of significance. Those perceptions of the trail and the meanings that derive from them color the ways that the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service manage and interpret El Camino for various members of the public. This presentation focuses on those perceptions, the public’s interpretation of the trail, and the management issues that arise from the interactions among the agencies charged with management and the members of the public for whom it is managed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16276