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<< Other Photo Pages >> Etzanoa - Ancient Village or Settlement in United States in The Plains

Submitted by bat400 on Saturday, 25 May 2019  Page Views: 6214

Multi-periodSite Name: Etzanoa Alternative Name: Great Settlement of the Rayados, Tzanoa
Country: United States Region: The Plains Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Arkansas City, KS  Nearest Village: Witchita, KS
Latitude: 37.033000N  Longitude: 97.041W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
1 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Etzanoa
Etzanoa submitted by dodomad : Professor Donald Blakeslee in one of the pits being excavated in Arkansas City, Kansas. Photo Credit: David Kelly (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Town in Cowley County, Kansas. A large site thought to be a Wichita (Kitikiti'sh) town from the European contact period, designated by the Spanish as the "Great Settlement of the Rayados." This town was estimated by the Spanish in the 1590s as having 12000-20000 people, a similar population than that of modern Arkansas City, KS, built on the same site.

When first visited by the Spanish in 1594, the settlement lay along 26 miles of the Arkansas and Walnut rivers, reaching back up to 2 miles from the riverbank. The settlement was made of groups of conical grass thatched houses and granaries, interspersed with fields of corn and beans. Occupied from approximately 1450 to 1700AD, it is likely to have been one of the largest population centers north of Mexico after the decline of Cahokia ca. 1250AD. The Spanish named the inhabitants the "Rayados" for the straight lines they tattooed on their bodies. Although the modern population routinely found potsherds and flint points in the area, road construction in the 1990's indicated a density of early occupation not previously understood. Spanish chronicles retranslated in 2013 led Donald Blakeslee (Prof. Anthropology and Archaeology, Wichita State University) to examine the area with geophysical surveys and test digs. In 2017 the discovery of cartridge shot from a field gun or "cannon" located what is thought to be the 1601 battle that forced the Spanish out of the area. By 1700, the settlement had been abandoned and there are estimates that the entire area had a decreased population and substantial resettlement of native peoples and reorganization of tribal groups as European diseases became known in the region.

Note: Archaeologists explore a rural field in Kansas, and a lost city emerges. See comment.
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"Etzanoa" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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Drone Imaging Reveals Pre-Hispanic ‘Great Settlement’ Beneath Kansas Ranch by Runemage on Friday, 18 September 2020
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This article in The Smithsonian Magazine September 16th 2020 describes how drone footage has revealed new archaeological features thought to be part of Etzanoa."

Extract
"In the new paper, the archaeologists suggest that sites including the just-detailed trench were part of Etzanoa, a population center dubbed the “Great Settlement” by Spanish conquistadors.

Spanish colonizers first encountered Etzanoa in the 1590s, when an unauthorized group traveled north in search of Quivira, a mythical city of gold, according to Ars Technica. Though the expedition ended violently, one survivor managed to return and inform the Spanish of what he’d seen. In 1601, conquistador Juan de Oñate marched to the settlement, captured a resident and tortured him until he revealed the city’s name.

Archaeologists first excavated the site of the newly discovered council circle more than 60 years ago, Blakeslee tells Science News. But by 1967, they felt that they had discovered all of the mounds and earthworks located along Walnut River.

Thanks to new technology, contemporary researchers have proven these predecessors wrong. Led by Dartmouth anthropologist Jesse Casana, the study’s authors used nighttime thermal imaging to measure how daytime heat dissipated from the soil. The ancient ditch, which measures roughly 165 feet in diameter and 6.5 feet thick, is filled with looser soil than the tightly packed prairie around it; as a result, it holds more moisture and radiates less heat at night."

Full article here "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/drone-imaging-finds-evidence-pre-columbian-great-settlement-under-kansas-ranch-180975818/"
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Archaeologists explore a rural field in Kansas, and a lost city emerges by bat400 on Thursday, 23 May 2019
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Excerpt from David Kelly's story in the Los Angeles Times:

There are no vine-covered temples or impenetrable jungles here — just an old-fashioned downtown. Yet there’s always been something — something just below the surface.

Locals have long scoured fields and river banks for arrowheads and bits of pottery, amassing huge collections. Then there were those murky tales of a sprawling city on the Great Plains and a chief who drank from a goblet of gold.

A few years ago, Donald Blakeslee, an anthropologist and archaeology professor at Wichita State University, began piecing things together. And what he’s found has spurred a rethinking of traditional views on the early settlement of the Midwest, while potentially filling a major gap in American history.

Using freshly translated documents written by the Spanish conquistadors more than 400 years ago and an array of high-tech equipment, Blakeslee located what he believes to be the lost city of Etzanoa, home to perhaps 20,000 people between 1450 and 1700.

They lived in thatched, beehive-shaped houses that ran for at least five miles along the bluffs and banks of the Walnut and Arkansas rivers. Blakeslee says the site is the second-largest ancient settlement in the country after Cahokia in Illinois.

On a recent morning, Blakeslee supervised a group of Wichita State students excavating a series of rectangular pits in a local field. Jeremiah Perkins, 21, brushed dirt from a half-buried black pot. Others sifted soil over screened boxes, revealing arrowheads, pottery and stone scrapers used to thin buffalo hides.

Blakeslee, 75, became intrigued by Etzanoa after scholars at UC Berkeley retranslated in 2013 the often muddled Spanish accounts of their forays into what is now Kansas. The new versions were more cogent, precise and vivid.
“I thought, ‘Wow, their eyewitness descriptions are so clear it’s like you were there.’ I wanted to see if the archaeology fit their descriptions,” he said. “Every single detail matched this place.”

Conquistadors are often associated with Mexico, but a thirst for gold drove them into the Midwest as well. Francisco Vazquez de Coronado came to central Kansas in 1541 chasing stories of a fabulously wealthy nobleman who napped beneath trees festooned with tinkling gold bells. He found no gold, but he did find Native Americans in a collection of settlements he dubbed Quivira.
In 1601, Juan de Oñate led about 70 conquistadors from the Spanish colony of New Mexico into south-central Kansas in search of Quivira in the hopes of finding gold, winning converts for the Catholic Church and extracting tribute for the crown.

According to Spanish records, they ran into a tribe called the Escanxaques, who told of a large city nearby where a Spaniard was allegedly imprisoned. The locals called it Etzanoa.
As the Spaniards drew near, they spied numerous grass houses along the bluffs. A delegation of Etzanoans bearing round corn cakes met them on the river bank. They were described as a sturdy people with gentle dispositions and stripes tattooed from their eyes to their ears. It was a friendly encounter until the conquistadors decided to take hostages. That prompted the entire city to flee.
Oñate’s men wandered the empty settlement for two or three days, counting 2,000 houses that held eight to 10 people each. Gardens of pumpkins, corn and sunflowers lay between the homes.

The Spaniards could see more houses in the distance, but they feared an Etzanoan attack and turned back. That’s when they were ambushed by 1,500 Escanxaques. The conquistadors battled them with guns and cannons before finally withdrawing back to New Mexico, never to return.

French explorers arrived a century later but found nothing. Disease likely wiped out Etzanoa, leaving it to recede into legend.

Blakeslee enlisted the help of the Na

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