Coyote Valley Early Settlement.

Coyote Valley Early Settlement.

Thomas G. Andrew begins by saying that no one really knows when and how humans started inhabiting the Coyote valley. Studying archaeological structures and ecological evidence is the only way to tell when the Valley was inhabited. This evidence say that the first people started life there at about 13,000 years ago. The coyote valley being a mountainous region, posed difficulty to those who settled there for it required them to be well suited and ready to adapt for them to be able to settle there. The early settlement of people began in a time that archaeologists call the Clovis period. This is a time that was marked by increase temperature that caused the glaciers in the area to melt, exposing some land. Many animals went ahead to colonize the newly exposed land as well as animals. The first people followed thereafter in groups of about fifty or less people. All the artifacts that have been collected about this people show that the Clovis people moved seasonally into the Colorado River from the winter camps that were located in low-lying plains, that were better sheltered to the east and the west, these movements were done on foot and could take a lot of time for them to reach their destinations.

One thing that is predominant with the archaeological evidence is that the Clovis people were big-game hunters. Clovis people understood well the ecosystem of Kawuneeche and had the knowledge of how to track, kill, and slaughter giant bison, mammoths, and other animals that found shelter in the Valley. In addition to game meat, Clovis people supplemented meat with fish, plants and smaller animals. The Clovis people’s history in the Coyote valley vanishes around 11,000 years ago, which many scholars say might be because of the colder weather and increased glacial activities; this would have caused them to lack food hence they wouldn’t survive in the Valley.

The people who seem to have conquered the Valley are the Nuche people. Their lifestyle in the Valley was way more different than that of the Clovis people, but they faced the same problem by living in the Valley. Even though the Nuche people hunted for game meat, they traded with the communities that lived around the Valley;. On one occasion in the book we see the Nuche people being led by Lechat in Santa Fe trading with the locals. They had beaver skins which they had acquired from their hunt. In return they wanted horses, sheep and mules which were in plenty among the locals.  Nuche people in this context are portrayed as furbearers and traders. The main problem that faced Nuche people while living in the Valley, as did they predecessors,  was the colder weather. As a measure to survive the harsh weather conditions, they resulted in living in the Colorado River headwaters. In addition to this they were also faced with infestation of mountain insects such as the pine beetle.

The Clovis people usually moved around the mountains and the valleys by foot, this is why they were commonly referred to as pedestrian nomads. Contrary to this, the Nuche people were more advanced for they had horses to transport them from one place to the other. They acquired these horses when they traded with the people who lived in different locations apart from the Valley. The Clovis people made tools from reliable rocks such as obsidian, common in the mountains, flint, jasper, and others. These tools are the ones that they used to hunt with, as well as do any work that was labor-intensive. Each task required a specialized toll, and the Clovis had all of them. Looking at the Nuche people, they usually lived in groups of around 50 or fewer people. This unit formed a society that hunted together and did all other things together. Like the Clovis people, they also used crude tools made from stones to hunt the animals and gather hides that they used to trade for the horses they used to travel with. Unlike the Cloves people, Nuche people interacted with other societies around them as they were the primary source of sheep, horses, and other things that they traded. The Nuche people also had leaders who were the decision-maker in the living groups; the leader was also tasked with negotiating terms of trade whenever the Nuche people went to trade.