Satellite Imagery and Esri’s ArcGIS Pro’s Georeferencing Tools Confirm Arkansas City, Kansas Is the Locale of Etzanoa, a Historic Site Visited by Spanish Explorer, Juan Oñate, in 1601

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Using Esri’s ArcGIS Pro’s georeferencing tools to rubber-sheet a historic native map to satellite imagery confirms Dr. Donald J. Blakeslee’s findings (2018) regarding a site located near the mouth of the Walnut River, in Arkansas City, Kansas. The site is likely the native town, Etzanoa, a settlement of the Ancestral Wichita and Affiliated Tribes visited by the Spanish explorer, Juan Oñate, in 1601. After rotating the Miguel Map 90-degrees clockwise and after applying Esri’s georeferencing tools to adjust its scale, we determined its major geographic features aligned closely to those featured in satellite imagery taken of the Walnut and Arkansas Rivers of Kansas and Oklahoma respectively. Further, a second map of the area contemporary with the Miguel Map produced by the royal Spanish cartographer Enrique Martinez, when assessed with the same Esri georeferencing tools and satellite imagery, also supports Blakeslee’s proposed location of Etzanoa and other nearby associated sites as dispersed along the Walnut and Arkansas Rivers. Upon a final review of the alignments between the maps and the corresponding satellite imagery, we concur; the proposed site for Etzanoa as Arkansas City, Kansas, near the mouth of the Walnut River is well supported.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23709