What is Pecos Pathways and how did it come to be?

Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico was “a Pueblo containing about 500 warriors.  It (was) feared throughout the land……the people of this town pride themselves because no one has been able to subjugate them, while they dominate the pueblos they wish.” – Pedro de Castaneda, 1540.

That was how Pecos Pueblo was viewed just prior to the Spanish conquest.  After the conquest, disease and warfare were the primary causes of a precipitous decline in population from 2,000 to about two dozen individuals in less than 250 years. The last 18 residents abandoned Pecos in 1838, walking to the only other Towa-speaking community at the Pueblo of Jemez, 80 miles to the southwest.  Their descendents still live at Jemez Pueblo.

Nearly 80 years later, from 1915 through 1929, the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology excavated Pecos Pueblo under the direction of Alfred V. Kidder.  Because of significant advances made in archaeological method and theory, this work was to become some of the most influential archaeological research of the 20th century.

Human remains and tens of thousands of artifacts recovered from excavation went to the Robert S. Peabody Museum for analysis and storage.  Over time the human remains were transferred  to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University for study.  During the 1970s much of the artifact collection was sent on long-term loan back to the site of Pecos Pueblo, now Pecos National Historical Park, where it remains today. 

With the passing of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990, this museum and the Harvard Peabody Museum collaborated on joint repatriation of artifacts and human remains to the Pueblo of Jemez, an event  that took place in 1999.  At the time, this repatriation was the largest to take place since the passage of NAGPRA.  An outgrowth of the long consultation process was recognition of a shared interest in educating young people and the desire to continue the relationship.

In 1998, the Robert S. Peabody Museum, the Pueblo of Jemez and the Pecos National Historical Park began collaboration on “Pecos Pathways,” an expeditionary learning program for high school-aged students.  Pecos Pathways invites young people from Jemez Pueblo, Phillips Academy and the town of Pecos, New Mexico to participate in three weeks of summer travel through the Southwest and New England.  The program is designed to be a cultural exchange between students from diverse backgrounds.  Its primary goal is to create an environment in which the participants learn about each other in an intimate and informal setting. This, in turn, fosters a deep appreciation for ancient and contemporary Native American culture and teaches young people how the past can inform both the present and the future.  Although traditional education has the same goal, the immediacy of experiential learning makes it an extremely effective teaching method. 

The three week trip begins in New Mexico where students stay with host families and work on archaeological and community service projects with the Pueblo of Jemez, visit Ancestral Puebloan sites and participate in an excavation and curatorial activities at the Pecos National Historical Park.  The Massachusetts and Connecticut portion of the trip introduces students to colonial New England and the tribal archaeology program and museum at the Mashantucket-Pequot Reservation in Connecticut.