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Geographic Information System Modeling of De Soto’s Route from Joara to Chiaha: Archaeology and Anthropology of Southeastern Road Networks in the Sixteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Kathryn Sampeck ,
Jonathan Thayn  and
Howard H. Earnest Jr.
Kathryn Sampeck
Affiliation:
Illinois State University, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Campus Box 4660, Normal, IL 61790 ([email protected])
Jonathan Thayn
Affiliation:
Illinois State University, Department of Geology and Geography, Campus Box 4400, Normal, IL 61790 ([email protected])
Howard H. Earnest Jr.
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar, 507 S. State St., Bloomington, IL 61701 ([email protected])
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Abstract

This research revisits the question of the most likely paths traveled during the 1540 entrada of Hernando de Soto and colonizing efforts of Juan Pardo about 20 years later by utilizing the spatial modeling method of geographic information system (GIS) analysis to evaluate the favorability of different paths and place them within the context of recent archaeological and ethnohistoric research. Analysis results make the larger anthropological point that GIS route modeling should explicitly take into account the size of the party traveling. Routes for small parties are not the same as optimal routes for large armies such as de Soto’s, which included hundreds of people, pieces of equipment, and livestock. The GIS-modeled routes correlate with the distribution of contact-period archaeological sites and attested eighteenth-century routes. More accurate estimation of Spanish routes allows us to better model the Native American social, economic, and political nexus of this period, showing that the residents in far eastern Tennessee were probably part of a dynamic borderlands between the chiefdom of Coosa to the west and the ancestral Cherokee heartland to the east. This anthropological refinement in GIS modeling will be useful in investigating ancient paths of interaction in many parts of the world.

Esta investigación evalúa por el mètodo de análisis espacial del sistema de información geográfico (SIG) la favoribilidad de los caminos viajados durante la entrada de Hernando de Soto en 1540 y la colonización de Juan Pardo aproximadamente 20 años más tarde. Esta información sobre caminos favorables considermos en relación a investigaciones recientes de arqueología y etnohistória. El análisis indica que el modelo de las las rutas debería tomar en cuenta explícitamente el tamaño del grupo viajando. Las rutas para uno o dos viajeros no son igual a las para ejércitos grandes como lo de Soto, que incluyó a cientos de personas, equipamiento,y ganado. Las rutas de SIG modelados son apoyadas por la distribución de los sitios arqueológicos del período de contacto y los caminos del siglo XVIII tomado por ejércitos durante la guerra de independencia. Estimación más exacta de las rutas españolas nos permite un mejor modelo del nexo social, económico, y político indígena de este período, mostrando que los residentes en el lejano oriente Tennessee eran probablemente parte de una zona fronteriza dinámica entre las jefaturas de la Coosa por el poniente y la tierra ancestrales de los Cherokee al oriente. Este perspectiva antropológica en el uso de SIG será útil para investigar caminos antiguos en muchas partes del mundo.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 46 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by the Society for American Archaeology.

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