From Wagons to Wayfaring: Documenting the Historic Trails In and Around Fort Union National Monument
Author(s): Megan D. Postemski
Year: 2018
Summary
Trails, paths, and roads comprise the landscape of movement. As these features accumulate in the landscape, they form a palimpsest, attesting to changing modes and patterns of human movement through time. This project examines the historic trail network in and around Fort Union National Monument (FOUNM) in New Mexico. During the nineteenth century, Fort Union served as guardian of the most prominent thoroughfare, the Santa Fe Trail, which channeled people, wagons, livestock, goods, and ideas across the American West. Other trails intersecting Fort Union included Fort streets, resource roads, and local roads. To classify and document the diversity of trails in and around FOUNM, the project adopts a multi-scalar approach involving on-the-ground trail survey, historic maps, and GIS. Embedded in the landscape, each trail type exhibits a distinct form and pattern, reflecting historic movement as well as other past and on-going site formation processes.
Cite this Record
From Wagons to Wayfaring: Documenting the Historic Trails In and Around Fort Union National Monument. Megan D. Postemski. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2018 ( tDAR id: 441584)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
American West
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Landscape
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Trails
Geographic Keywords
North America
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United States of America
Temporal Keywords
19th Century
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 262