----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pat Barrett" <[log in to unmask]>

> Thanks, Kath. Totally fascinating post, esp the barter part.
> In 1979 I attended a conference on Native American nutrition and one thing 
> pointed out was that a lot of nutrients came from the ash from the cooking 
> fire floating up and then falling into the food. Also, the minerals from 
> the grinding stones and other stone paraphernalia contributed.
>


Thanks, Pat.  I never heard or thought about nutrients from ash or minerals 
from grinding stones.  Most interesting.  I have a close friend who 
inherited several very old grinding stones that were found out in the desert 
in what is now White Sands Missile Range.  The stones were most likely from 
Mogollan peoples.  She's going to donate them to the Apache museum in 
Mescalero the next time we get up there.

I attended a "Full Moon" lecture at White Sands Monument last night....we 
drove in the dark about 20 minutes beyond the monument, snaking through 
white dunes where many movies have been filmed (outer space flics).  The 
moon was enormous.  During the lecture we saw a white burst of light in the 
night sky; no idea what it was.  The archeologist giving the lecture said 
that the Mogollon people disappeared from the region about 1450 - coinciding 
w/ the approx. date of Apache arrival.  No sign of warfare though; probably 
a mini-ice age crop failure event.

The archeologist has found many pottery shards in the area (high Mescalero 
mts. nxt. to the dune area) dating to approx. 500 A.D.  I am fascinated by 
the waves of different peoples who have come to this area....hunter 
gatherers replaced or turned into agriculturalists who were then replaced by 
hunter gatherers who turned to agriculture....   I wonder if many other 
areas on the planet had similar waves when people lived in an area and then 
totally dropped agriculture after adopting it then went back to it due to 
climatic conditions.

I incorrectly tended to think in linear terms re. h&g then agri.  The exerpt 
from a paper below says the Mogollon culture might hv started around 250 BC. 
They were here for approx. 1800 yrs during which, at some time, they became 
agriculturalists.

Kath
www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/artifacts/gilapottery.html