Editing Apache (section)

===Entry into the Southwest===
[[File:Western or chiri apache playing cards NMAI.jpg|thumb|upright|Apache rawhide playing cards c. 1875–1885, collection of [[NMAI]].]]

The Apache and Navajo speak related languages of the [[Athabaskan]] language family.<ref name=Roberts48ff>{{Cite book |title=A History of New Mexico |last=Roberts |first=Susan A. |author2=Roberts, Calvin A. |year=1998 |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |location=Albuquerque |isbn=0-8263-1792-8 |pages=48–49 }}</ref> Other Athabaskan-speaking people in North America continue to reside in [[Alaska]], western [[Canada]], and the [[Pacific Northwest|Northwest Pacific Coast]].<ref name=Roberts48ff/> Anthropological evidence suggests that the Apache and Navajo peoples lived in these same northern locales before migrating to the Southwest sometime between AD 1200 and 1500.<ref name=Roberts48ff/>

The Apaches' nomadic way of life complicates accurate dating, primarily because they constructed less substantial dwellings than other Southwestern groups.<ref>Cordell, p. 148</ref> Since the early 21st century, substantial progress has been made in dating and distinguishing their dwellings and other forms of material culture.<ref>Seymour 2004, 2009 a, 2009 b, 2010</ref> They left behind a more austere set of tools and material goods than other Southwestern cultures.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}

The Athabaskan-speaking group probably moved into areas that were concurrently occupied or recently abandoned by other cultures. Other Athabaskan speakers, perhaps including the Southern Athabaskan, adapted many of their neighbors' technology and practices into their own cultures. Thus sites where early Southern Athabaskans may have lived are difficult to locate and even more difficult to firmly identify as culturally Southern Athabaskan. Recent advances have been made in the regard in the far southern portion of the American Southwest.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}

There are several hypotheses about Apache migrations. One{{who|date=January 2014}} posits that they moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In the mid-16th century, these mobile groups lived in tents, hunted [[bison]] and other game, and used dogs to pull [[travois]] loaded with their possessions. Substantial numbers of the people and a wide range were recorded by the Spanish in the 16th century.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}

In April 1541, while traveling on the plains east of the [[Pueblo]] region, [[Francisco Coronado]] referred to the people as "dog [[nomad]]s." He wrote:

{{blockquote|After seventeen days of travel, I came upon a 'rancheria' of the Indians who follow these cattle (bison). These natives are called Querechos. They do not cultivate the land, but eat raw meat and drink the blood of the cattle they kill. They dress in the skins of the cattle, with which all the people in this land clothe themselves, and they have very well-constructed tents, made with tanned and greased cowhides, in which they live and which they take along as they follow the cattle. They have dogs which they load to carry their tents, poles, and belongings.<ref>Hammond and Rey</ref>}}

[[File:Coronado expedition.jpg|thumb|The [[Francisco Vásquez de Coronado|Coronado Expedition]], 1540–1542]]
The Spanish described Plains dogs as very white, with black spots, and "not much larger than water spaniels."<ref name="Henderson">Henderson</ref> Plains dogs were slightly smaller than those used for hauling loads by modern Inuit and northern First Nations people in Canada. Recent experiments show these dogs may have pulled loads up to 50 pounds (20&nbsp;kg) on long trips, at rates as high as two or three miles per hour (3 to 5&nbsp;km/h).<ref name="Henderson"/> The Plains migration theory associates the Apache peoples with the [[Dismal River culture]], an archaeological culture known primarily from ceramics and house remains, dated 1675–1725, which has been excavated in [[Nebraska]], eastern Colorado, and western [[Kansas]].{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}

Although the first documentary sources mention the Apache, and historians have suggested some passages indicate a 16th-century entry from the north, archaeological data indicate they were present on the plains long before this first reported contact.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}

A competing theory{{who|date=January 2014}} posits their migration south, through the [[Rocky Mountains]], ultimately reaching the American Southwest by the 14th century or perhaps earlier. An archaeological material culture assemblage identified in this mountainous zone as ancestral Apache has been referred to as the "Cerro Rojo complex".<ref>Seymour 2004, 2009b, 2010</ref> This theory does not preclude arrival via a plains route as well, perhaps concurrently, but to date the earliest evidence has been found in the mountainous Southwest.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}} The Plains Apache have a significant Southern Plains cultural influence.

When the Spanish arrived in the area, trade between the long-established Pueblo peoples and the Southern Athabaskan was well established. They reported the Pueblo exchanged maize and woven cotton goods for bison meat, and hides and materials for stone tools. Coronado observed the Plains people wintering near the Pueblo in established camps. Later Spanish sovereignty over the area disrupted trade between the Pueblo and the diverging Apache and Navajo groups. The Apache quickly acquired horses, improving their mobility for quick raids on settlements. In addition, the Pueblo were forced to work Spanish mission lands and care for mission flocks; they had fewer surplus goods to trade with their neighbors.<ref>Cordell, p. 151</ref>

In 1540, Coronado reported that the modern Western Apache area was uninhabited, although some scholars have argued that he simply did not see the American Indians. Other Spanish explorers first mention "Querechos" living west of the Rio Grande in the 1580s. To some historians, this implies the Apaches moved into their current Southwestern homelands in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Other historians note that Coronado reported that Pueblo women and children had often been evacuated by the time his party attacked their dwellings, and that he saw some dwellings had been recently abandoned as he moved up the Rio Grande. This might indicate the semi-nomadic Southern Athabaskan had advance warning about his hostile approach and evaded encounter with the Spanish. Archaeologists are finding ample evidence of an early proto-Apache presence in the Southwestern mountain zone in the 15th century and perhaps earlier. The Apache presence on both the Plains and in the mountainous Southwest indicate that the people took multiple early migration routes.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}