On the Road Again: Archaeology on El Camino Real

Summary

In 2017, graduate students enrolled in a cultural resource management class conducted a week-long documentation and surface collection project at Paraje San Diego, a popular historic campsite on El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail. The Camino Real once connected the Spanish colony of New Mexico, founded in 1598, to the markets and governing authorities in central Mexico. After Mexico won independence from Spain it served as a commercial corridor between Mexico and the United States. Following the Mexican-American War, it hosted American soldiers as they battled Apache raiders, and later each other, in the Civil War. In all of these periods, and in the decades that followed, travelers stopped at Paraje San Diego to rest and fill up on water. Preliminary analysis of the types and locations of historical-period artifacts recovered from the site provides some insight into the dates and nature of these different encampments.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21925