Worlds Forever Changed: The Rio Grande Pueblos, First Contact, and the Vázquez de Coronado Expedition (1540-1542) – Matt Schmader

The huge exploration led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was the first contact between Ancestral Rio Grande Pueblos and outsiders. Its intended goals failed and the expedition spent the whole winter of 1540-1541 camped in village that was taken over from Southern Tiwa residents. Distrust and strife broke out into outright hostilities called the Tiguex War. Investigations of architecture, materials, and artifact patterning from a major site of the war, located north of Albuquerque, are presented.

Dr. Matt Schmader has been conducting archaeological research for 40 years in the southwestern United States and obtained his PhD in 1994 from the University of New Mexico. He has worked at a wide variety of sites in central New Mexico, from PaleoIndian campsites and Archaic period dwellings to pithouse villages, sacred petroglyph sites, and the historic red-light district in downtown Albuquerque. Since 2007, his research has focused on the 1540-1542 Coronado exploration in the Rio Grande valley, its conflicts, and impacts on local native populations. He was the former Albuquerque city archaeologist and is currently an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico Department of Anthropology.