Much of the history of the Apache Wars--indeed, much of all military history--is focused on battles, great victories and losses that profoundly impacted what is today our life and governments. We know about great leaders and their decisions. Little attention is usually given to the ordinary people who fought the wars for them and what they had to endure. Archaeological research helps us discover those aspects of daily life, the artifacts and evidence of how soldiers and warriors carried on their day-to-day existence. For example, it tells us that the soldiers dug special underground channels to keep their tents warm and that the Apaches favored specific spots for camping. What is shown most clearly at Pine Springs Camp is the expression of how two disparate and opposing forces used the same set of resources in different ways, at virtually the same time.
According to Eleanor King and Charles Haecker, while the field phase of the project is over, research on the history of the site is continuing, using both historical records and live informants to get a sense of what happened at Pine Springs Camp in the past. They hope in the future to be able to correlate the archaeological evidence more specifically with the real people who lived and camped at the site, thereby providing a larger window on the post-emancipation life of African Americans and their impact on the communities and cultures of the Southwest.
Sources
A bibliography has been collected for this project.
