ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN THE TAOS 

 VALLEY, NEW MEXICO, DURING 1920 



By J. A. JEANgON 



(With 15 Plates) 



INTRODUCTION 



Although it had been known that there were prehistoric ruins in 

 the Taos Valley in northern New Mexico, they had never been con- 

 sidered of sufficient importance to warrant excavating. The number 

 of sites and the extent of their distribution had never been determined 

 and it remained for the writer to make a survey of what appears to 

 be a very important area of the pre-Spanish Southwest. As far as 

 it has been possible to ascertain, the chronicles of the early Spanish 

 explorers make no reference to any ruins in this region, although 

 they write about the Pueblo of Taos. The first mention is found in 

 the Castaiieda report of the Coronado expedition ^ and in the Relacion 

 del Suceso. In these records the village is called Braba, Valladolid 

 and other names. It was visited by Alvarado in 1540 and by Bar- 

 rionuevo in I54r. In the Castaiieda report Taos is spoken of as a 

 large and powerful village with a river flowing through the middle 

 of it.' According to Bandelier, the present buildings are not the same 

 as those of the i6th century Braba. but they still preserve the same 

 appearance and occupy the same position relative to the river and 

 valley as did the old village." 



Comparatively little ethnological work has been done at Taos and 

 consequently the origiif of the present people is still very much in 

 doubt. The genesis myths of the Taos and of the Jicarilla Apaches, 

 who occupy an adjacent portion of the State, have many points in com- 

 mon, and according to Mr. James Mooney * the friendship between 



* Winship, G. P., The Coronado Expedition, 1540-1542. 14th Ann. Rep. Bur. 

 Amer. Ethnol., pp. 329-613. 



^Winship, G. P., he. cit., p. 511. 



' Bandelier, A.. Final Report, Pt. II, Papers of the Archaeological Institute 

 of America, American Series, IV, University Press, Cambridge, 1892, p. 31. 



• Mooney, J., The Jicarilla Genesis. Amer. Anthrop. o. s. Vol. XI, No. 7, p. 200, 

 Washington, 1898. 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 81. No. 12 



