Chapter 8:

LINGUISTICS

Jennifer L. Logan

The linguistic overview provides information necessary for determining
cultural affiliation according to NAGPRA regulations. A review of the
linguistic literature pertaining to south Texas contributes to the
establishment of a comprehensive foundation of basic information on what
is currently known about the Coahuiltecan Indians. This information will
be used by the National Park Service and the San Antonio Missions
National Historical Park in evaluating cultural affiliation issues
pertaining to NAGPRA.

Coahuiltecan Language

The languages spoken by the Coahuiltecan Indians are poorly known. The
only known dictionary of a possible Coahuiltecan language was compiled
in 1732 by Gabriel Vergara for the language spoken of the Pajalates of
the Rio Grande and Mission Concepción in San Antonio. No dictionaries
were created for the Indians of south Texas before their native
languages fell out of use. Neither were linguistic studies conducted
with native speakers before their languages were lost. Consequently, all
contemporary linguistic studies on the languages of the south Texas
Indians are based on a sparse written record. Identifying the languages
spoken by the hunter-gatherer groups who lived in southern Texas and
northern Mexico is a task that has intrigued researchers since the
middle of the nineteenth century.

The most extensive written evidence for the linguistic affiliation of
these peoples was compiled in 1760 by Fray Bartolomé García as a church
manual designed to aid communication between Spanish missionaries and
their indigenous converts (Campbell and Campbell 1996:16). García's
manual documented the language spoken by the Alasapas, Borrados,
Chayopines, Manos de Perro, Mescales, Orejónes, Pacaos, Pacoas,
Pacuaches, Pajalates, Pamaques, Pampopas, Pausanes, Piguiques, Sanipaos,
Tilijaes, Tacames, Venados, "and many other different ones that are in
the missions of the Rio de San Antonio and Rio Grande" (Goddard
1979:364). Notes on the language of the Pajalates of Mission Concepción,
by Gabriel Vergara and dated 1732, were found in a manuscript that had
been used as part of the binding of an early version of García's manual
(Schuetz 1980b:44). Vergara's notes are an important additional source
of information of the Coahuiltecan languages, and indicate that the
dialect of the Pajalates of Mission Concepción was different from that
spoken by those recorded on the Rio Grande by García (Goddard 1979:365).
The Rio Grande missions referred to by García have been identified as
San Juan Bautista and San Bernardo (Goddard 1979:364, citing T.N.
Campbell, personal communication, 1979). This language, and the peoples
who spoke it, or were thought to speak it, was first given the name
"Coahuilteco" in the middle 1800s by Mexican linguist Manuel Orozco y
Berra (1864).

Dialects of the Coahuiltecan language were once thought to have been
spoken widely, if not exclusively, throughout the region under study.
For decades, this presumed linguistic homogeneity was assumed to reflect
an overall cultural homogeneity as well, a view promoted by Ruecking in
the 1950s. In the early 1960s, Newcomb (1961:29-30) stated

all the peoples of this tremendous region in Texas and Mexico apparently
spoke dialects or languages of a common linguistic stock,
Coahuiltecan...there were numerous minor cultural differences
distinguishing various Coahuiltecan subgroups from one another.

That south Texas was rich in a diversity of languages became
increasingly evident by the late 1970s. Only a modified version of the
former view is now accepted, which concedes that Coahuilteco may have
been widely spoken, but largely as a secondary language. Campbell and
Campbell (1996:69) note that when Bartolomé García's manual was
published in the middle of the eighteenth century, "some of the Indian
groups who originally spoke other languages could have become
Coahuilteco speakers because Coahuilteco had become the dominant native
language spoken in the missions." It is generally assumed that the
majority of Indian groups affiliated with Mission San Juan spoke a
Coahuiltecan language, but recent studies reveal the possibility that
Coahuilteco was a *lingua franca* throughout the San Antonio mission
system. Of the 20 groups of indigenous peoples linked with Mission San
Juan Capistrano, only the Pajalat, Tacame, and Tilijae, and possibly the
Peana are likely to have been Coahuilteco speakers (Table 10) (Campbell
and Campbell 1996:68).

Affiliated Languages

A number of languages spoken by the Indians of south Texas and northeast
Mexico have now been identified, including Comecrudo, Cotoname,
Coahuilteco, Aranama, Solano, Mamulique, and Garza (Goddard 1979).
According to Goddard (1979:363, 371-372), those languages spoken in
Texas at the time that they were recorded include Coahuilteco, Garza
(Mier), and Solano (Eagle Pass). Comecrudo (Tamaulipas), Mamulique
(Nuevo León), and Aranama (Matamoros) were spoken in Mexico (Goddard
1979:369-373). Swanton (1940:118) places Cotoname in Tamaulipas.

Since the late 1800s, linguistic research has focused on attempting to
identify the genetic relationships of these languages to one another
(Table 11). The major trends dominating linguistic research on the
indigenous peoples of south Texas since Orozco y Berra's work involve
identifying the languages spoken by the south Texas Indians and
determining the geographical extent of the Coahuiltecan language family.
Following Orozco y Berra (1864), Powell (1891) assigned Coahuilteco,
Comecrudo, and Cotoname under the Coahuiltecan language family. Gatschet
(1891), however, placed the same three languages within the Pakawan
family. Atakapa (southwest Louisiana and northeast Texas) (Newcomb
1961:315-316) and Maratino (Mexico?) were included with Coahuilteco,
Comecrudo, and Cotoname under the Coahuiltecan family by Swanton in
1915. Building on Swanton's research, Sapir (1920) agreed with his
classification of the Coahuiltecan languages, added Solano and Aranama
to the family, and hypothesized a link between Coahuiltecan and Hokan.
By 1929, Sapir suggested that Tonkawa and Karankawa be added to the
languages composing the Coahuiltecan family.

In 1964, a linguistic conference was held in Indiana and a consensus was
reached on the Coahuiltecan language classification that removed
Comecrudo, Cotoname, Karankawa, and Tonkawa from the Coahuiltecan
family. Comecrudo and Cotoname were placed in the Comecrudan family,
while Coahuilteco was declared a linguistic isolate (Manaster Ramer
1996:13). Both Coahuiltecan and Comecrudan were thought to be related
only in that they both belonged to the Hokan Phylum (Goddard 1979:377).
In his

Table 10. Probable linguistic affiliation of Indian groups at Mission
San Juan (after Campbell and Campbell 1996, Table 3).

  -------------- --------------- ----------- --------------- -------------------- --------------- ------------- ---------------
  **Mission                      **Mission                   **Mission San Juan**                 **Mission     
  Concepción**                   San José**                                                       Espada**      

  **Group**      **Language**    **Group**   **Language**    **Group**            **Language**    **Group**     **Language**

                                 Aguastaya   *unknown*                                                          

  Apache         *Apachean                                                                                      
                 (Athapaskan)*                                                                                  

                                 Aranama     *Aranama*                                                          

                                                                                                  Arcahomo      *unknown*

                                                                                                  Assaca        *unknown*

  Borrado        *unknown*       Borrado     *unknown*       Borrado              *unknown*       Borrado       *unknown*

                                                                                                  Cacalote      *unknown*

                                                                                                  Caguaumama    *unknown*

                                 Camama      *unknown*                                                          

  Camasuqua      *unknown*                                   Camasuqua            *unknown*       Camasuqua     *unknown*

                                 Cana        *unknown*                                                          

                                                                                                  Carrizo       *unknown*

                                                                                                  Cayan         *unknown*

  Chayopin       *unknown*       Chayopin    *unknown*       Chayopin             *unknown*                     

  Coapite        *Karankawa*                                                                                    

  Comanche       *Comanche*                                                                                     

  Copan          *Karankawa*                                                                                    

  Cujan          *Karankawa*     Cujan       *Karankawa*                                                        

                                 Eyeish      *Caddo                                                             
                                             (Caddoan)*                                                         

                                                                                                  Gegueriguan   *unknown*

                                                             Guanbrauta-Aiaquia   *unknown*                     

                                                                                                  Huaraque      *unknown*

  Lipan Apache   *Apachean       Lipan       *Apachean                                                          
                 (Athapaskan)*   Apache      (Athapaskan)*                                                      

  Malaguita      *unknown*                                   Malaguita            *unknown*       Malaguita     *unknown*

  Manos de Perro *unknown*                                                                                      

                                 Mayapem     *Cotoname*                                                         

                                 Mesquite    *unknown*                                            Mesquite      *unknown*

  Orejón         *unknown*                                   Orejón               *unknown*                     

  Pacao          *Coahuilteco*                                                                    Pacao         *Coahuilteco*

  Pachalaque     *Coahuilteco*                                                                                  

  Pajalat        *Coahuilteco*                               Pajalat              *Coahuilteco*                 

  Pamaque        *unknown*                                   Pamaque              *unknown*       Pamaque       *unknown*
  -------------- --------------- ----------- --------------- -------------------- --------------- ------------- ---------------

Table 10. Continued.

  -------------- --------------- ------------- --------------- ------------- --------------- ------------- ---------------
  **Mission                      **Mission San                 **Mission San                 **Mission     
  Concepción**                   José**                        Juan**                        Espada**      

  **Group**      **Language**    **Group**     **Language**    **Group**     **Language**    **Group**     **Language**

                                 Pampopa       *Coahuilteco*                                               

                                                               Pana          *unknown*                     

                                                               Pasnacan      *unknown*                     

                                 Pastia        *Coahuilteco*                                               

  Patalca        *unknown*                                                                                 

  Patumaco       *Coahuilteco*                                                                             

  Payaya         *Coahuilteco*                                                                             

                                                               Peana         *unknown*                     

  Piguique       *unknown*                                     Piguique      *unknown*                     

                                 Pinto         *unknown*                                                   

                                                               Pitalac       *unknown*                     

                                                                                             Pootajpo      *unknown*

                                 Queniacapem   *unknown*                                                   

                                                                                             Saguiem       *unknown*

  Sanipao        *unknown*                                                                                 

  Sarapjon       *unknown*                                     Sarapjon      *unknown*       Sarapjon      *unknown*

                                 Saulapaguem   *Cotoname*                                                  

                                                                                             Siguipan      *unknown*

  Siquipil       *Coahuilteco*                                                                             

                                 Sulujam       *Coahuilteco*                                               

  Tacame         *Coahuilteco*   Tacame        *Coahuilteco*   Tacame        *Coahuilteco*   Tacame        *Coahuilteco*

  Taguaguan      *unknown*                                     Taguaguan     *unknown*       Taguaguan     *unknown*

                                 Tejas         *Caddo                                                      
                                               (Caddoan)*                                                  

                                 Tenicapem     *Cotoname*                                                  

  Tilijae        *Coahuilteco*                                 Tilijae       *Coahuilteco*                 

  Tilpacopal     *Coahuilteco*                                                                             

  Tinapihuaya    *unknown*                                     Tinapihuaya   *unknown*       Tinapihuaya   *unknown*

  Toaraque       *unknown*                                                                                 

                                                                                             Tuarique      *unknown*

                                                                                             Uncrauya      *unknown*

  Venado         *unknown*                                     Venado        *unknown*                     

  Viayan         *unknown*                                     Viayan        *unknown*       Viayan        *unknown*

  Xarame         *Coahuilteco*                                                                             

                                 Xauna         *unknown*                                                   

  Yojuane        *Tonkawa?*                                                                                

                                                                                             Zacuestacán   *unknown*

  **Total: 32**  **Total: 5**    **Total: 21** **Total: 6**    **Total: 20** **Total: 1**    **Total: 25** **Total: 1**
  -------------- --------------- ------------- --------------- ------------- --------------- ------------- ---------------

reanalysis of the data used to classify the Coahuiltecan languages,
Goddard (1979:379) departs from the "consensus classification" by
asserting that "the three components of...Coahuiltecan---Coahuilteco,
Comecrudo, and Cotoname---must all be considered independent isolated
languages whose genetic relationships are at present unknown." Solano
and Aranama were also judged to be inadequately documented to be
classified. Goddard (1979:380) also introduced Mamulique and Garza,
languages recorded by Jean Louis Berlandier in 1828-1829 (1969
\[1830\]), and conceded that, pending further research, those languages
may provide justification for the Comecrudan family, based on
similarities between them and Comecrudo.

The most current studies support of Goddard's conclusions. Manaster
Ramer (1996:14) concurs with the grouping of Manulique, Garza, and
Comecrudo under the Comecrudan family, as suggested by Goddard, and sees
evidence for including Coahuilteco and Cotoname in the Comecrudan
language family as well. Manaster Ramer also evaluates the evidence for
the inclusion of Karankawa, Tonkawa, and Atakapa under the Coahuiltecan
family. He concludes that Karankawa is distantly related to
Coahuiltecan, the position of Atakapa is uncertain, and there is no
evidence to substantiate the claim that Tonkawa is a Coahuiltecan
language (Manaster Ramer 1996:27, 32). Campbell (1996:632), on the other
hand, believes that Manaster Ramer's conclusions are based on
insufficient documentation. Consequently, while some of the proposed
groupings may seem plausible, none of the recorded languages of south
Texas can be classified with any degree of confidence and "the languages
should be viewed as unrelated."

Concluding Comments

Little written documentation for the languages spoken by the
Coahuiltecan Indians has been found. Most written evidence for the
linguistic affiliation of the indigenous peoples of south Texas and
northeast Mexico was obtained from tribes located close to the Rio
Grande. A Pajalat dictionary was compiled by Gabriel Vergara in the
1730s for several indigenous groups then living near the Rio Grande, and
in 1760, Fray Bartolomé García compiled a bilingual church manual in a
language spoken by many groups in the region as well (Campbell and
Campbell 1996:16; Goddard 1979:364). From the late nineteenth century
until the 1970s, the geographic Coahuiltecans were thought to have been
linguistically homogeneous. This view has been largely rejected, save
for the concession that Coahuilteco may have been widely spoken, but
largely as a secondary language. At least seven languages spoken by the
Indians of south Texas and northeast Mexico have now been identified
(Goddard 1979). Researchers intent upon classifying these languages in
relation to one another have concluded that, because of the inadequacy
of existing documentation, the languages should be considered
independent isolates.

Table 11. Summary information on the classification of Coahuilteco and
the Coahuiltecan language family.

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| **Publication**                   | **Summary**                       |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Fray Bartolomé García             | Church manual in Spanish with     |
|                                   | native language equivalents (in   |
| 1760 *Manual para administrar los | the language spoken by the        |
| santos sacramentos de penitencia, | Alasapas, Borrados, Chayopines,   |
| eucharistia, extrema-uncion, y    | Manos de Perro, Mescales,         |
| matrimonio...*                    | Orejones, Pacaos, Pacoas,         |
|                                   | Pacuaches, Pajalates, Pamaques,   |
| Mexico.                           | Pampopas, Pausanes, Piguiques,    |
|                                   | Sanipaos, Tilijaes, Tacames, and  |
|                                   | Venados).                         |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| de Vergara, Gabriel               | Notebook compiled by Gabriel de   |
|                                   | Vergara in 1732, recording the    |
| 1965 \[1732\] *El Cuadernillo de  | language of the Pajalate Indians  |
| la lengua de los indios pajalates | and an Indian confessional in the |
| (1732) y El confesonario de       | Coahuiltecan language.            |
| indios en lengua coahuilteca,*    |                                   |
| edited by Eugenio del Hoyo.       |                                   |
| Publicaciones del Instituto       |                                   |
| Technológico y de Estudios        |                                   |
| Superiores de Monterrey, Serie    |                                   |
| Historia 3. Monterrey, Mexico.    |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Manuel Orozco y Berra             | Geographic distribution of        |
|                                   | languages of Mexico, coined term  |
| 1864 *Geografía de las lenguas y  | *Coahuilteco* to describe         |
| carta etnográfica de México.*     | languages and cultural groups of  |
| Impr. de J.M. Andrade y F.        | northern Mexico and southern      |
| Escalante, Mexico.                | Texas.                            |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Gatschet, Albert S.               | Coins term *Pakawan* to refer to  |
|                                   | Coahuiltecan languages.           |
| 1891 *The Karankawa Indians, The  |                                   |
| Coast People of Texas.*           |                                   |
| Archaeological and Ethnological   |                                   |
| Papers of the Peabody Museum Vol. |                                   |
| 1, No. 2. Harvard University,     |                                   |
| Cambridge.                        |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Powell, John W.                   | Grouped Coahuilteco, Comecrudo,   |
|                                   | Cotoname under Coahuiltecan.      |
| 1891 *Indian Linguistic Families  |                                   |
| of America North of Mexico*.      |                                   |
| Seventh Annual Report of the      |                                   |
| Bureau of American Ethnology.     |                                   |
| Government Printing Office,       |                                   |
| Washington, D. C.                 |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Swanton, John R.                  | Grouped Coahuilteco, Comecrudo,   |
|                                   | Cotoname, plus Atakapa and        |
| 1915 Linguistic Position of the   | Maratino, under Coahuiltecan.     |
| Tribes of Southern Texas and      |                                   |
| Northeastern Mexico. *American    |                                   |
| Anthropologist* 17:17-40.         |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Sapir, Edward                     | Agreed with Swanton's             |
|                                   | conclusions, and suggested that   |
| 1920 The Hokan and Coahuiltecan   | Solano and Aranama be included.   |
| Languages. *International Journal | Also tried to link Coahuiltecan   |
| of American Linguistics*          | with Hokan.                       |
| 1(4):280-290.                     |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Sapir, Edward                     | Established Coahuiltecan family,  |
|                                   | including Tonkawa, Karankawa, and |
| 1925 The Hokan Affinity of        | Coahuilteco (Coahuilteco =        |
| Subtiaba in Nicaragua. *American  | Coahuilteco "proper," Comecrudo,  |
| Anthropologist* 27(3):402-435,    | Cotoname, Solano and Aranama).    |
| (4):491-527.                      |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Voegelin, C.F. and F.M. Voegelin  | Coahuilteco viewed as a           |
|                                   | linguistic isolate, Comecrudo and |
| 1964 Languages of the World:      | Cotoname now grouped under        |
| Native America Fascicle Two.      | Comecrudan. Comecrudan and        |
| *Anthropological Linguistics*     | Coahuilteco in Hokan Phylum.      |
| 7(7):1-150.                       |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Goddard, Ives                     | Coahuilteco, Comecrudo, and       |
|                                   | Cotoname are "independent         |
| 1979 The Languages of South Texas | isolated languages." Also         |
| and the Lower Rio Grande. In *The | introduces Mamulique and Garza as |
| Languages of Native America:      | languages related to each other   |
| Historical and Comparative        | under the family Comecrudan.      |
| Assessment*, edited by Lyle       |                                   |
| Campbell and Marianne Mithun, pp. |                                   |
| 355-389. University of Texas      |                                   |
| Press, Austin.                    |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Manaster Ramer, Alexis            | Pakawan = Coahuilteco, Comecrudo, |
|                                   | Cotoname, Mamulique, and Garza;   |
| 1996 Sapir's Classifications:     | Coahuiltecan = Pakawan plus       |
| Coahuiltecan. *Anthropological    | Karankawa and Atakapa.            |
| Linguistics*, 38(1): 1-38.        |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Campbell, Lyle                    | The languages should be viewed as |
|                                   | unrelated because the documentary |
| 1996 Coahuiltecan: A Closer Look. | evidence is too poor to be able   |
| *Anthropological Linguistics*,    | to demonstrate genetic            |
| 38(4): 620-634.                   | relationships.                    |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

Chapter 9:

ARCHAEOLOGY

Jennifer L. Logan

The purpose of this chapter is to review the literature on south Texas
and mission Indian archaeology in an effort to provide baseline
information to the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park for
addressing cultural affiliation issues pertaining to NAGPRA. Many San
Juan community members claim descent from Native American peoples
brought into the mission. These peoples are commonly referred to as
Coahuiltecans, a cultural designation that is increasingly questioned by
the anthropological community (Hester 1998:5-6, 2000:5-6).

Archaeological data, when combined with ethnographic and ethnohistoric
information, has the potential to enable researchers to identify the
pre-contact (e.g., "Prehistoric") ancestry of historically known
cultural groups. In some parts of the United States, including south
Texas, native culture changed so drastically after the time of initial
European contact as to become unrecognizable as such by the late 1800s,
when the discipline of anthropology was born. In such cases,
archaeologists frequently rely on ethnohistoric descriptions of
indigenous material culture when trying to link pre-contact sites with
historically known peoples (Trigger 1982:2-3).

Ethnohistoric information on the indigenous groups of south Texas and
northeast Mexico---commonly referred to as Coahuiltecan---extends as far
back as the late 1520s through the mid-1530s with Cabeza de Vaca (Covey
1961). Subsequent to his return to Spain, de Vaca documented his
experiences living with native peoples of the Texas Gulf Coast and of
his travels across south Texas. After 1535, Spanish attention is not
focused on Texas again until 1689, when a party accompanying Captain
Alonso de León crossed the Rio Grande in search of a rumored French
settlement (Casis 1916; West 1905). Missions were set up within the next
three decades in east Texas and along the San Antonio River. In 1731,
three of the east Texas missions were relocated to the San Antonio River
and became known as Missions Concepción, San Juan, and Espada.

Studies of south Texas archaeology are limited by the sparse information
available from the temporal spectrum as a whole. However, the late
pre-contact period (ca. AD 800-A.D. 1600) is considered "the best known
prehistoric time interval in the region \[of south Texas\]; remains are
distinctive, numerous, and better preserved than earlier Archaic
materials" (Black 1989:51). This time period also encompasses the
earliest contacts between Europeans and indigenous peoples in Texas. The
interval between the late pre-contact and the early post-contact
("Historic") period is crucial to establishing cultural affiliation ties
to contemporary Native American groups descended from Texas Indians. For
studies of this nature, collaboration between archaeologists,
ethnohistorians, and native peoples becomes necessary. According to
NAGPRA regulations:

Cultural affiliation means that there is a relationship of shared group
identity which can reasonably be traced historically or prehistorically
between members of a present-day Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian
organization and an identifiable earlier group. Cultural affiliation is
established when the preponderance of the evidence---based on
geographical, kinship, biological, archaeological, linguistic, folklore,
oral tradition, historical evidence, or other information or expert
opinion---reasonably leads to such a conclusion \[United States
Department of the Interior (USDOI) 1999\].

The Coahuiltecan Indians were actually numerous diverse bands of
hunter-gatherers living throughout south Texas and northeast Mexico.
From the time of initial European contact, considerable population
decline affected the indigenous population, resulting in the
fragmentation and amalgamation of remnant bands (Schuetz 1980b:12-15).
The San Antonio missions, established for the survivors in the early
eighteenth century, preserve a valuable record of the material culture
of the south Texas Indians (Fox 1983). Church reports during the 1700s
frequently note the regular practice of hunting and gathering activities
by Indian recruits, while archaeological data reveals the continuation
of pre-contact stone tool and pottery making industries throughout the
Colonial period (ca. A.D. 1716-A.D. 1821) (Fox 1989:85). The question
that immediately comes to mind is whether archaeological materials from
the Late Prehistoric period of south Texas and northeast Mexico can be
tied to any of the Indian groups that populated the Texas missions
during the Spanish colonial era.

Material Culture

Hester (1980:38) notes that the indigenous peoples of south
Texas---Coahuiltecan and Karankawa---"represent the culmination of more
than *11,000 years* \[emphasis in original\] of a way of life that had
successfully adapted to the climate and the resources of south Texas."
Like most other researchers, however, Hester is hesitant to make
definitive conclusions linking historically known and pre-contact
cultural groups based on the archaeological record. Since archaeological
data from the Late Prehistoric, Protohistoric, and Historic periods in
Texas are most critical in efforts to determine cultural affiliation of
pre-contact material remains, the material culture of these periods are
briefly characterized below.

Late Prehistoric (ca. A.D. 800-A.D. 1600)

The technological changes that characterize the Late Prehistoric period
in general are found spread "over a vast region stretching from
north-central and west-central Texas to deep south Texas," from a point
of origin in the south Plains (Black 1989:57). Two phases, the Austin
Phase (A.D. 800-1300) and the Toyah Phase (A.D. 1300-1600) are
recognized within the Late Prehistoric period throughout south Texas.
The Austin Phase is marked by the introduction of the bow-and-arrow and
expanding stemmed Scallorn points, while the Toyah Phase is marked by
contracting stemmed Perdiz points, the appearance of pottery making
among inland groups, and the reintroduction of blade technology. Because
Toyah material culture appears in Texas suddenly and fully developed,
Johnson (1994:272) dismisses hypotheses that the complex developed in
Texas, and suggests that it was brought in already fully developed by
immigrant bison hunters. By matching the geographic placement of
ethnohistorically described ethnic groups with the Classic Toyah culture
area, Johnson offers the eastern Sanan speakers, the Aranama, and
Coahuilteco speakers as possible "latter day Toyah Folk."

Along the Texas gulf coast, the Late Prehistoric period began around
A.D. 1200, marked by the Rockport complex, while in the Rio Grande delta
it is marked by the emergence of the Brownsville complex after A.D.
1200. Unlike sites in the south Texas interior and gulf coast, ceramics
are not typical of Brownsville Complex sites, nor are stemmed arrow
points. Brownsville Complex peoples possessed a well-developed shell
tool working technology. Some of the Brownsville Complex groups
apparently survived "well into the historic era" (Black 1989:52), as
evidenced by archaeological and ethnohistoric information.

Regional distinctions during the Late Prehistoric era are particularly
evident in ceramics. Two main ceramics traditions, bone-tempered and
sandy-paste, have been recognized within south Texas. Bone-tempered
pottery, called Leon Plain, is primarily recovered from inland south
Texas sites and is associated with the Toyah cultural complex (Hester
1989c:215). Vessels of this type are simply shaped, usually undecorated,
and made with a crushed animal bone temper (Hester 1980:124). Johnson
cautions that the subtleties of variation among ceramics in pre-contact
sites are inadequately dealt with to justify Leon Plain as a typological
category. The similarities and differences need to be evaluated "in a
much more detailed manner than is involved in assigning type names and
composing type descriptions" (Johnson 1994:210). A sandy-paste ceramics
tradition is associated with the Karankawa Indians (Hester 1980:128)
along the Texas Gulf Coast. Such pottery, referred to as Rockport ware,
tends to be thin-walled, sandy-textured, and typically decorated and
waterproofed with asphaltum (Black 1989:52). Black (1989:52) cautions,
however, that as the sample of coastal ceramics grows larger, it becomes
clear that "the inland and coastal pottery traditions appear to be
interrelated and less distinct than once thought."

Protohistoric Interval

Black (1989:52) notes the existence of "a short lived protohistoric
interval in the brief span between the initial Spanish contact in AD
1528 (Cabeza de Vaca) and total domination of the region by the mid
eighteenth century." During the protohistoric period, the introduction
of horses by the Spanish, epidemics resulting from newly introduced
European diseases, and trade for European goods caused rapid changes in
indigenous cultural groups (Johnson 1994:287). The year 1528 marks the
Spanish *entrada* into Texas and the first written descriptions of the
appearance and lifestyle of the native cultural groups.

Historic Period

Indigenous ceramics production and bone, lithic, and shell working
technologies were carried over into the Historic period. Other artifacts
characterizing post-contact Indian sites include projectile points
fashioned out of glass or metal, glass trade beads, gunflints, and gun
parts (Hester 1980:161). Priests at the Spanish missions supplied native
recruits with religious ornaments such as crucifixes and rosaries and
with utilitarian utensils including scissors, knives, pots, and pans
(Hester 1989c:218). During the Historic period, the hunting and
gathering lifestyle practiced by most Texas native cultural groups
eventually ceased to be a viable way of life. With the advancement of
the Apache from the west, most of the south Texas hunter-gatherer groups
repeatedly experienced geographic displacement during the Historic
period of the late seventeenth century.

The San Antonio missions, established during the early to mid-eighteenth
century, recruited most of their indigenous converts from among south
Texas cultural groups. Many native Texan cultural groups had already
experienced decimation of population due to introduced diseases and
warfare with the Spanish and competing tribes. By the late nineteenth
century, these groups were no longer cohesive units, the remaining
members of which became socioeconomically integrated into the population
of the dominant society or were relocated to reservations outside the
state. The Historic period also encompasses the "extinction" of the
Coahuiltecan Indians brought into the Spanish missions.

Indian pottery traditions continued with few stylistic changes. While
Spanish missionaries often note the absence of pottery making among the
diverse Indian groups entering the San Antonio missions (Hester
1980:124-125; Schuetz 1969:63), archaeological research has demonstrated
that pottery is found in great quantities throughout pre-contact sites
in the region. In any case, mission Indian pottery, called Goliad ware,
closely resembles Leon Plain ceramics. Hester (1989c:215-217) emphasizes
that, "it is specifically the bone-tempered pottery tradition of Late
Prehistoric times \[i.e. Leon Plain\] that becomes the dominant utility
ware of the missions and that persists in south Texas into the early
nineteenth century." Goliad ware ceramics frequently display incised
linear or wavy lines, small dots painted with asphaltum or red paint,
and notched rims. Goliad ware appears to be a synthesis of Leon Plain
and Rockport ware (Hester 1980:125-126). In short, Leon Plain pottery is
called Goliad ware when found in mission contexts. Hester
(1989c:223-224) notes that "its \[Goliad ware's\] basic attributes are
no different from those of Leon Plain." It remains unclear as to why
missionaries noted the absence of a pottery making tradition among the
south Texas Indians.

Lithic technologies employed by the region's aboriginal hunter-gatherers
continued to be utilized at the missions. Hester (1989c:220) notes that
in 1767, Fray Gaspar de Solís observed that "old men made arrows for the
warriors" at Mission San Juan Capistrano, although translations of the
Solís diary place this observation at San José (Forrestal 1931:21; Kress
1931:52). Manufacture and use of stone tools was ubiquitous in all the
south Texas missions. Blade technology in particular continued to be
practiced at Missions San Juan Capistrano, Espíritu Santo, and San
Bernardo (Hester 1989c:217, 223). Projectile point inventories from
excavations at the Spanish missions are dominated by Zavala and Guerrero
points. Guerrero points, having both lanceolate and triangular forms,
represent a completely new type of arrow point that is found at all the
Texas missions from the early 1700s, including Mission San Juan. Hester
(1989c:220-221) reports that at the Shanklin site, a non-mission site in
Wharton County (southeast Texas), Guerrero points were recovered in
association with a Spanish coin dating to 1738. Zavala points may be
re-worked from Archaic dart points, but have also been found in sites in
the Rio Grande Valley dating from the sixteenth through the eighteenth
century (Hester 1989c:220).

Mission Excavations

Eleven archaeological investigations have been conducted at Mission San
Juan since the 1930s (Table 12), when reconstruction of the mission's
walls and limited excavations were undertaken by workers employed with
the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The bulk of archaeological work
at San Juan has taken place since the late 1960s. In 1967, Mardith
Schuetz, as representative of San Antonio's Witte Museum, directed
mitigation activities at Mission San Juan in response to a request by
the Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio. A number of excavations
covering different portions of the mission grounds took place under
Schuetz's supervision for the next four years (Schuetz 1968, 1969, 1974,
1980a). In 1983, excavations related to foundation stabilization took
place in the floor of the post-Colonial, or Tufa, house situated on the
east wall. Representatives from the University of Texas at San Antonio's
Center for Archaeological Research (CAR-UTSA) carried out additional
excavations at Mission San Juan in 1986, 1992, 1997, 1998, and 1999
(Figure 30).

Table 12. Chronology of archaeological investigations at Mission San
Juan Capistrano (see Figure 30 for location of rooms and excavation
areas).

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| **Reference**                     | **Date**                          |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | **Institution and Work            |
|                                   | Undertaken**                      |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Referenced in:                    | Late 1930s                        |
|                                   |                                   |
| Schuetz, M. K.                    | Works Progress Administration     |
|                                   | (WPA) excavation of grounds in    |
| 1968 *The History and Archaeology | various places around mission     |
| of Mission San Juan Capistrano,   | walls, exposure of buried         |
| San Antonio, Texas*. Volume I (of | foundations, reconstruction of    |
| II): Historical Documentation and | mission walls.                    |
| Description of the Structures.    |                                   |
| Report No. 10. State Building     |                                   |
| Commission Archaeological         |                                   |
| Program, Austin.                  |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Schuetz, M. K.                    | 1967                              |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1968 *The History and Archaeology | Witte Museum, excavation of Rooms |
| of Mission San Juan Capistrano,   | 4 through 13 and 19-22, partial   |
| San Antonio, Texas*. Volume I (of | excavation of the ruined church   |
| II): Historical Documentation and | located in the east wall of the   |
| Description of the Structures.    | quadrangle (Room 26), testing of  |
| Report No. 10. State Building     | areas in the north wall and       |
| Commission Archaeological         | around structures 17, 18, 22, 27, |
| Program, Austin.                  | 29 and Area A, partial excavation |
|                                   | of Area B (the midden).           |
| Schuetz, M. K.                    |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1969 *The History and Archaeology |                                   |
| of Mission San Juan Capistrano,   |                                   |
| San Antonio, Texas*. Volume II:   |                                   |
| Description of the Artifacts and  |                                   |
| Ethno-History of the Coahuiltecan |                                   |
| Indians. Report No. 11. State     |                                   |
| Building Commission               |                                   |
| Archaeological Program, Austin.   |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Schuetz, M. K.                    | 1968                              |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1980a *The History and            | Witte Museum, the excavation of   |
| Archaeology of Mission San Juan   | level 3 of Area B (the midden),   |
| Capistrano, San Antonio, Texas*.  | excavation of the colonial floor  |
| Volume IV: *Excavation of the     | in Room 19, re-excavation of Room |
| Convento*. Manuscript on file,    | 21 and portions of Room 20,       |
| Texas Historical Commission,      | testing around south walls to     |
| Office of the State               | obtain additional building data   |
| Archaeologist, Austin.            | for the restoration, screening of |
|                                   | midden material thrown up by the  |
|                                   | restoration and reinforcement of  |
|                                   | the walls of Room 18, testing in  |
|                                   | front of the pilasters of the     |
|                                   | chapel (Room 17).                 |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Schuetz, M. K.                    | 1969                              |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1974 *The Dating of the Chapel at | Witte Museum, excavation of the   |
| Mission San Juan Capistrano, San  | Chapel (Room 17).                 |
| Antonio, Texas*. Special Reports, |                                   |
| No. 12. Texas Historical          |                                   |
| Commission, Office of the State   |                                   |
| Archaeologist, Austin.            |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Schuetz, M. K.                    | 1971                              |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1980A *The History and            | Witte Museum, excavation of Rooms |
| Archaeology of Mission San Juan   | 22, 23, 31(earliest church), 32   |
| Capistrano, San Antonio, Texas*.  | and 34 (*convento*), portion      |
| Volume IV: *Excavation of the     | *convento* plaza (units 4, 5, 6,  |
| Convento*. Manuscript on file,    | 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,  |
| Texas Historical Commission,      | 23, 24, 25, 42, and 43).          |
| Office of the State               |                                   |
| Archaeologist, Austin.            |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Escobedo, J. T.                   | 1983                              |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1985 *The Post-Colonial House: An | National Park Service, excavation |
| Excavation Report*. Manuscript on | of foundations of post-Colonial   |
| file, headquarters, San Antonio   | (Tufa) house on east wall of      |
| Missions National Historical      | mission compound.                 |
| Park.                             |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

Table 12. Continued.

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| **Reference**                     | **Date**                          |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | **Institution and Work            |
|                                   | Undertaken**                      |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Turner, D. D.                     | 1986                              |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1988 *Excavations at San Juan     | Center for Archaeological         |
| Capistrano, 41BX5, Bexar County,  | Research at University of Texas   |
| Texas*. Center for Archaeological | at San Antonio (CAR-UTSA), test   |
| Research, University of Texas at  | excavations outside north wall.   |
| San Antonio Archaeological Survey |                                   |
| Report No. 171.                   |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Fox, A. A.                        | 1992                              |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1993 *Archaeological Testing and  | Center for Archaeological         |
| Monitoring in Connection with a   | Research at University of Texas   |
| Drainage Project at Mission San   | at San Antonio (CAR-UTSA),        |
| Juan Capistrano San Antonio,      | excavation of portions of east    |
| Bexar County, Texas*. Center for  | wall, southeast corner of         |
| Archaeological Research,          | mission, interior of church ruin  |
| University of Texas at San        | near north wall doorway, and      |
| Antonio Archaeological Survey     | south of south wall of Tufa       |
| Report, No. 217.                  | House.                            |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Gross, K. J.                      | 1998                              |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1998 *Archaeological Testing and  | Center for Archaeological         |
| Monitoring for a Proposed         | Research at University of Texas   |
| Drainage Channel at Mission San   | at San Antonio (CAR-UTSA), test   |
| Juan Capistrano, San Antonio,     | excavations along proposed        |
| Texas*. Center for Archaeological | drainage channel outside south    |
| Research, University of Texas at  | wall.                             |
| San Antonio Archaeological Survey |                                   |
| Report, No. 283.                  |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Durst, J. J.                      | 1998                              |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1999 Recent Excavations at        | Center for Archaeological         |
| Mission San Juan de Capistrano.   | Research at University of Texas   |
| *Cultural Resources Management    | at San Antonio (CAR-UTSA),        |
| News and Views*, 11(1):31-33.     | excavation outside of western     |
|                                   | wall of chapel.                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Cargill, D. A. and R. C. Robinson | 1997 and 1999                     |
|                                   |                                   |
| 2000 *Archaeological Testing and  | Center for Archaeological         |
| Monitoring of a Service Drive at  | Research at University of Texas   |
| Mission San Juan Capistrano, San  | at San Antonio (CAR-UTSA), 14     |
| Antonio, Texas*. Center for       | shovel tests, three test          |
| Archaeological Research,          | excavation units, and one backhoe |
| University of Texas at San        | trench outside the north and      |
| Antonio Archaeological Survey     | northwest area of the mission     |
| Report, No. 296.                  | compound.                         |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Francis, J. R.                    | 1999                              |
|                                   |                                   |
| 2000 Isolated Burial Analysis. In | Center for Archaeological         |
| *Archaeological Testing and       | Research at University of Texas   |
| Monitoring of a Service Drive at  | at San Antonio (CAR-UTSA),        |
| Mission San Juan Capistrano, San  | monitoring construction and       |
| Antonio, Texas*, by D. A. Cargill | discovering, removing, analyzing, |
| and R. C. Robinson, Appendix IV.  | and reinterring Native American   |
| Center for Archaeological         | human remains along drainage      |
| Research, University of Texas at  | channel south of compound.        |
| San Antonio, Archaeological       |                                   |
| Survey Report, No. 296.           |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

Schuetz's excavations of the mission compound were undertaken with the
goal of recovering an artifact assemblage representative of Coahuiltecan
lifeways. The material culture of mission Indians was seen as
particularly important in its potential to shed light on unreliable
ethnographic data on the Indians of south Texas and northeast Mexico and
the demise of pre-contact hunter-gatherer cultures by the end of the
eighteenth century. The fallacy of equating cultural extinction or the
demise of pre-contact lifeways with human biological extinction is
pointed out by Schuetz (1980b:4), who notes that "the traditional
assessment of the failure of the Spanish mission institution has, of
course, been linked to the 'disappearance' of their Indian charges from
history" (Table 13). She points out that, even if an indigenous peoples'
ethnic identity has remained strong through the centuries since European
contact, it is unrealistic to assume that their culture has consequently
remained unchanged (Schuetz 1980b:2-3).

During the 1967 excavations at Mission San Juan, Schuetz (1969:71-72)
found a number of projectile points representing a variety of types,
including points she identifies as Montell, Tortugas, Abasolo, and
Matamoros. These points were identified later by another author as
Guerrero points (Turner 1988:21). Schuetz's (1980a) 1971 excavations
produced six arrowheads, four of which were made from metal. Turner
(1988:21) reports finding two Guerrero points. No Guerrero points were
recovered from Fox's excavations (Fox 1993:20-21). It is unknown why a
new type of projectile point began to be made as the Texas Indians
entered the Spanish missions. Guerrero points were used by a variety of
Historic period Indians living in the Texas missions, including the
Coahuiltecans and other south Texas native peoples at Mission San Juan.

Evidence for abundant pottery making at Mission San Juan Capistrano is
revealed in artifact inventories from excavations over the past 30
years. In the first major excavations at Mission San Juan, Schuetz
(1969:68) recovered over 3,000 sherds of what she refers to as "Mission
Indian" ceramics from mission Indian, Colonial, and post-Colonial
contexts. During the 1969 excavation season at the mission, Schuetz
(1974:37) recovered a total of 169 "Indian-made sherds." In 1971, she
carried out additional excavations at San Juan and recovered over 5,457
"Indian" sherds (Schuetz 1980a). Escobedo (1985:22) recovered a number
of Colonial period ceramics during excavations of the post-Colonial
(Tufa) house, some of which were found in association with Oliva shells,
but he did not specify if any of these were Native American. Turner
(1988:13) recovered over 100 sherds of Goliad ware from excavations in
the northeast corner of the mission compound, and Fox (1993:13) counted
well over 200 "unglazed" sherds (equated with Goliad ware) in
excavations of portions of the east wall and southeast corner of the
mission compound. Hinojosa and Fox (1991:113, 117) note that locally
produced Indian ceramics, which they refer to as "Coahuiltecan
ceramics," have been found in large numbers in excavations of eighteenth
century and early nineteenth century home sites within the city of San
Antonio.

Fox (1993:15) maintains that the continuous distribution of unglazed
ceramic sherds across archaeological deposits in some areas at Mission
San Juan "bears out previous observations...that the manufacture of
Goliad ware continued past secularization of the missions and into the
early nineteenth century in San Antonio." Goliad ware is closely
affiliated with mission Indians, including Coahuiltecans, at San Juan.
Its wide-spread distribution in the San Antonio area, however,
demonstrates that Goliad ware (also known as Coahuiltecan ceramics) was
used by Indians and non-Indians of various ethnic affiliations.

Indigenous lithic and ceramic technologies, as well as labor, clearly
contributed to the health of mission economic systems. Hinojosa and Fox
(1991) adopt a historical perspective in their study of the role played
by Native Americans in early San Antonio's (i.e., San Fernando) economy,
using census records, tax rolls, and other historical records, to
explain the considerable amount of Indian-made goods present in San

Fernando home sites.

![](media/image1.jpeg){width="6.105555555555555in"
height="3.4131944444444446in"}

Figure 25. Map showing locations of archaeological excavations at
Mission San Juan from 1968-1998 (after Durst 1999:32 and Schuetz
1968:Figure 1).

Table 13. Archaeological commentary on Coahuiltecan extinction.

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| **Reference**                     | **Commentary**                    |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Daniel E. Fox                     | "most Texas Indians were well on  |
|                                   | the way to extinction by the      |
| 1983 *Traces of Texas History:    | beginning of the nineteenth       |
| Archaeological Evidence of the    | century. Today not one of the     |
| Past 450 Years.* Corona           | original Indian cultures survives |
| Publishing Co., San Antonio.      | within the borders of the state"  |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | (p. 29).                          |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| T.R. Hester                       | "none of these hunters and        |
|                                   | gatherers survived culturally or  |
| 1989a Texas and Northeastern      | biologically to be interviewed by |
| Mexico: An Overview. *Columbian   | early anthropologists" (p. 195).  |
| Consequences, Vol. 1:             |                                   |
| Archaeological and Historical     |                                   |
| Perspectives on the Spanish       |                                   |
| Borderlands West*, edited by      |                                   |
| David Hurst Thomas, pp. 191-212.  |                                   |
| Smithsonian Institution Press,    |                                   |
| Washington, D.C.                  |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| T.R. Hester                       | "By the early nineteenth century, |
|                                   | the native peoples of the area    |
| 1989b Historic Native American    | were either culturally or         |
| Populations. *From the Gulf to    | biologically extinct . . . and a  |
| the Rio Grande: Human Adaptation  | few had been displaced into what  |
| in Central, South, and Lower      | is now northern Mexico. They did  |
| Pecos Texas*, by T.R. Hester,     | not survive long enough to be     |
| S.L. Black, D.G. Steele, B.W.     | studied by anthropologists" (p.   |
| Olive, A.A. Fox, K.J. Reinhard,   | 77).                              |
| and L.C. Bement, pp. 77-84.       |                                   |
| Arkansas Archaeological Survey    |                                   |
| Research Series No 33.            |                                   |
| Fayetteville.                     |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| LeRoy Johnson                     | "Unfortunately, it is not known   |
|                                   | how much of the original Classic  |
| 1994 *The Life and Times of       | Toyah population survived till    |
| Toyah-Culture Folk: The           | mission days . . . Coahuilteco    |
| Buckhollow Encampment Site 41KM16 | speakers . . . may have been      |
| Kimble County, Texas*. Office of  | latter-day Classic Toyah folk"    |
| the State Archaeologist Report    | (p. 281).                         |
| No. 38. Texas Department of       |                                   |
| Transportation and Texas          | "the Gringos came, bringing with  |
| Historical Commission, Austin.    | them their Southern American      |
|                                   | behavioral patterns. That really  |
|                                   | did herald the end of everything  |
|                                   | aboriginal"                       |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | (p. 287).                         |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

Native American-made lithic and ceramic objects utilized by the
townspeople reflect essentially the same technologies and uses of such
artifacts in pre-contact archaeological sites (Hinojosa and Fox
1991:113, 117). Hinojosa and Fox (1991:116) suggest that the cultural
disruption Native American mission recruits experienced during the
missionization process (with the goal of socioeconomic integration) was
mitigated by the fact that most recruits were already familiar with the
fundamentals of many of the new subsistence and craft skills being
taught to them by the missionaries. For instance, the production of
stone tools, grinding stones, and pottery, as well as weaving (now
cotton and wool instead of coarse plant fibers) and woodworking (now
metal instead of stone tools) were widely practiced in pre-contact times
(Hinojosa and Fox 1991:116). Hinojosa and Fox (1991:106,117) repeatedly
associate mission Indians and mission Indian goods with the
Coahuiltecans and Karankawas, and consistently compare mission Indian
artifacts with artifacts recovered from pre-contact period sites in
south Texas. Even though San Antonio's indigenous population was "at
once excluded and integrated" by the dominant society, the authors
believe that the presence of numerous remains of "Coahuiltecan
artifacts" (Hinojosa and Fox 1991:106) in the villa indicates widespread
acceptance of Indian culture by the non-indigenous population. The
popularity of Native American stone tools and pottery among
non-indigenous townspeople waned towards the close of the eighteenth
century, "possibly because the Coahuiltecan and Karankawa population
both inside and outside the mission declined" (Hinojosa and Fox
1991:117). Another reason was the growing availability of trade goods
from elsewhere: by legal trade, through Mexico, and illegal trade,
largely through Louisiana (Rosalind Rock, personal communication 2001.)

Funerary objects (grave goods) may also offer clues to ethnicity or
cultural affiliation. However, not all artifacts recovered from burial
places are likely to be grave goods. Much mixing of sediments occurred
in the graveyards at San Juan. Grave pits were dug through midden areas
as well, so that living debris was incorporated in many of the graves.
The list of artifacts recovered from burial places at the mission
frequently reflects the range of activities---hunting, cooking, eating,
craft activities---central to mission Indian life (see Table 14).

Cultural Affiliation

Researchers' interest in San Antonio mission Indian material culture,
and especially that from San Juan, derives in part from a desire to
recover archaeological assemblages attributable to the Coahuiltecan
Indians (Fox 1983:107; Schuetz 1968:1). Such a sample, if its cultural
affiliation were known, could be used in the interpretation of late
pre-contact artifact assemblages in south Texas sites. Samples for which
the cultural affiliation is known would also be valuable in tracing
culture change and assimilation among mission Indians (Fox
1989:260-262). In spite of links between the material remains of mission
Indians and sites dating to the Late Prehistoric period, most
researchers hesitate to identify the cultural affiliation of pre-contact
era native peoples who lived in south Texas (Black 1989:57; Hester
1989a:197). According to Black (1989:57). The roots of this dilemma are
to be found in the cultural diversity of the region; while the same
pre-contact technologies are also manifested in mission contexts, it is
unlikely that they can be tied to specific groups. As Table 14 and the
following discussions show, however, archaeologists have often linked
selected artifacts to mission Indians in general, and "Coahuiltecans" in
particular.

Table 14. List of artifacts, including probable funerary objects (grave
goods) recovered from burials at Mission San Juan (Schuetz 1968, 1974,
1980a; coffin nails and fragments of coffin wood excluded).

  -------------- --------------------------------------------------------
  **1967**       

  Burial 1       2 majolica sherds

  Burial 2       several glass beads

  Burial 8B      bone stained with red ocher

  Burial 8C[^1]  bone stained with red ocher, 2 Spanish coins (on left
                 pelvis)

  Burial 10      worked deer metapodial (on left pelvis)

  Burial 11B     brass medallion w/ cloth adhering to it

  Burial 11C     brass crucifix w/ cloth adhering to it, handmade shell
                 beads

  Burial 11E     brass crucifix

  Burial 11H[^2] bone pin

  Burial 12B     copper chain with wooden rosary beads

  Burial 16A     crucifix with glass sets

  Burial 18B     rosary of square cut lignite and glass beads

  **1969**       

  Burial A       metal arrow point (cause of death)

  Burial 1       Indian-made potsherd

  Burial 2A      4 brass buttons, bits of wool fabric, 3 Indian potsherds

  Burial 2B      1 bone button, 1 copper button, 1 flint knife or
                 scraper, 1 Indian potsherd

  Burial 2C      Painted plaster remnants, fragments of oxidized copper,
                 pin-shaped wooden object covered with gesso, fragments
                 of painted wood.

  Burial 3A      2 sherds blue and white majolica, 1 Indian potsherd, 4
                 fragments mussel shell, animal bones

  Burial 3B      bits of corroded small-gauge wire, 1 bone button

  Burial 4B      1 brass hook and eye dress fastener, 9 brass straight
                 pins, bits of cotton fabric, 1 dart point (base)

  Burial 6A      5 Indian potsherds, 1 majolica sherd, 1 flint chip, 1
                 flint knife, fragments wall plaster, animal bones

  Burial 6A´     2 Indian potsherds, 1 flint flake, 1 brick fragment, 1
                 fragment wall plaster

  Burial 6B      4 buttons, 3 porcelain buttons, 1 Indian potsherd

  Burial 6C      1 fragment green glass

  Burial 7       1 Indian potsherd, fragments animal bone

  Burial 8A      3 fragments wall plaster

  Burial 8B      1 heavy iron spike

  Burial 10A     2 majolica sherds, 7 Indian potsherds, 2 flint chips, 1
                 bone button (fragment)

  Burial 10B     1 Indian potsherd, 1 animal horn

  Burial 11      1 Indian potsherd, 1 majolica sherd, 1 fragment wall
                 plaster, animal bones, 2 fragments flint, 1 fragment
                 colorless glass, 1 piece wire

  **1969**       

  Burial 12B     2 fragments majolica, 1 Indian potsherd, 1 wheel-thrown
                 sherd, 1 fragment brick, 1 flint flake, animal bones

  Burial 13      6 white glass buttons, 1 iron buckle

  Burial 14B     1 English feather-edged sherd, 1 Indian potsherd, 1
                 fragment brick, rodent bones

  Burial 15A     1 mother-of-pearl button, 1 green porcelain button

  Burial 15B     2 porcelain and mother-of-pearl buttons

  Burial 16B     strips of gesso and paint, 3 bone buttons

  Burial 17      2 flint flakes, 1 hematite pigment stone, 2 Mexican
                 lead-glazed sherds, 1 Indian potsherd, 3 majolica
                 sherds, animal bone

  Burial 18      3 sets hook-and-eye dress fasteners, brass straight
                 pins, bits of fabric, 1 Indian potsherd

  Burial 19A     fragments red ocher, fragments painted gesso, bits of
                 oxidized copper and cloth

  **1971**[^3]   

  Burial 19B[^4] 1 copper spear point (proximal end), fragments red paint
                 stone, 2 majolica sherds, 3 Indian potsherds

  Room 31, Units 4 brass religious medals, 101 glass trade beads,
  31 and 41      fragment charred fabric, 1 bone pin

  Room 31, WPA   fragments woven black fabric
  pit            

  Room 31        3 bone beads
  -------------- --------------------------------------------------------

Hester (1989c:217-225) identifies the majority of mission Indians as
Coahuiltecan, associating mission Indian technology with the pre-contact
hunter-gatherers of south Texas and northeast Mexico. In particular, he
links Goliad ware with both the Karankawa and Coahuiltecan Indians
(Hester 1980:126). In a recent article, Hester (1999) evaluates Cabeza
de Vaca's Texas route from archaeological materials that match de Vaca's
descriptions of items of material culture for groups that lived in the
territory of the "Coahuiltecans and their neighbors" (Campbell
1983:39-40). He finds a number of parallels, including stone and wooden
mortars and pestles, extensive prickly pear fields in deep south Texas,
faunal remains of highly diverse taxa, digging sticks, earth ovens,
gourd rattles, and possible bloodletting tools, most of which were
recovered from dry caves in the Lower Pecos (Hester 1999).

In her overview of mission Indian material culture and Coahuiltecan
ethnohistory, Schuetz (1969:99-100) perceives a number of traits
suggesting an ancient geographic origin in northern Mexico and the Lower
Pecos of Texas. She also links triangular arrow points with Coahuiltecan
use in Texas and northern Mexico (Schuetz 1969:72, 81; 1980a:367).
Hester (1981:10), however, does not perceive any clear technological
patterns to support this hypothesis.

While not addressing the nature of mission Indian artifacts per se,
Johnson (1994) presents an intriguing interpretation of Toyah cultural
remains that bears directly upon current assumptions placing
Coahuiltecan and Karankawa Indians behind mission Indian material
culture in south Texas. Hunter-gatherers of the Toyah archaeological
culture relied heavily upon bison and larger game animals (such as deer)
and possessed a distinctive tool-kit that included end scrapers,
perforators and drills, barbed arrow points, shaft abraders, *manos* and
*metates*, and a simple, bone-tempered pottery called Leon Plain by most
typologists (Johnson 1994:259-261). The Toyah culture area of the late
pre-contact period included much of Texas (Figure 26), with the
exception of the Panhandle, the El Paso area, deep south Texas, and the
Texas gulf coast. Classic Toyah sites are concentrated on the Edwards
Plateau, Blackland Prairie, and inland coastal plain (Johnson 1994:263,
279). Upon its adaptation by some local peoples, Toyah material culture
developed into Classic Toyah culture (Johnson 1994:263). Based on
comparisons with sites from surrounding regions, Johnson (1994:273)
assigns a Plains Village area origin for most components of Classic
Toyah artifact assemblages, with a possible southwestern U.S. or
northeast Mexico origin for compound arrows and barbed points, and a
possible Mogollon ancestry for pottery.

From ethnohistoric descriptions of groups located within the Toyah
culture area, Johnson identifies the eastern Sanan speakers, the
Aranama, and Coahuilteco speakers as possible "latter day Toyah Folk."
He takes particular care to explain that, "it is unlikely that the
Coahuiltecos were much like the rude digger Indians of archaeological
and ethnographic folklore called 'Coahuiltecans'" (Johnson 1994:278).
Instead,

Those unfortunate Spaniards did not describe the Coahuiltecos but
instead sojourned with Indians living near and on the Gulf coast, south
of our people of interest. Their picture even of life among south
peoples is biased, however, for Cabeza de Vaca and his compatriots \[in
addition to being Christian zealots and racists of the first water
(sic)\] were virtual slaves while among certain aboriginal groups and
were forced to do demeaning women's chores---possibly because they could
not be taught more complex native skills. They consequently reported a
self-serving, pitiful version of native life depicting superstitious,
half-starved,

![](media/image2.wmf)Figure 26. Map of approximate locations (1690-1750)
in the state of Texas for ethnolinguistic groups thought to have
possessed Toyah material culture (after Johnson 1994:279, Figure 106).

grubbing people of the most primitive sort. At this point in
ethnohistorical research it is crystal clear that the term
*Coahuiltecan* ought to be tossed into the trash heap of misleading
ethnic labels, while retaining *Coahuilteco* for a particular
ethnolinguistic series of human groups just below the Edwards Plateau
who hunted buffalo and did general food collecting \[Johnson 1994:279\]

Concluding Comments

Cultural affiliation is a multifaceted issue in North American
archaeology. Campbell (1971:2) feels that for cultural affiliation
studies to be fruitful, ethnohistoric research must be systematically
scrutinized with archaeological problems in mind. In south Texas,
however, even with historical written documentation available, the lack
of precise dates for Late Prehistoric archaeological sites and the
absence of distinctive material remains from known cultural groups makes
it difficult, at the very least, to correlate archaeological sites with
identifiable cultural groups (Black 1989:57). Even so, archaeologists
and ethnohistorians should have a symbiotic relationship. As Johnson
(1994) points out that, in order to more accurately pinpoint cultural
distinctions in the archaeological record, assemblages from
archaeological sites need to be analyzed more holistically and in more
detail. He maintains that, in order to remain contemporarily relevant, "
(pre)history, as a discipline, must either break bread with the dead and
acknowledge humanity as its principal subject...or else become ever more
trivial in its results and restricted in its appeal" (Johnson 1994:282).

A promising arena for advancing cultural affiliation research in south
Texas is in the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Spanish missions.
Colonial and early post-Colonial period indigenous artifacts in San
Antonio---of the missions or the villa---are unambiguously linked with
the Coahuiltecans and Karankawa by a number of authors (Table 15).
Research clearly indicates that a number of technologies utilized during
the Late Prehistoric period in Texas, most notably stone tool and
pottery making, continued to be practiced throughout the Colonial period
by the indigenous population of the Spanish missions in the San Antonio
area. In fact, those technologies persisted well into the nineteenth
century. This trend is of great interest, and perhaps indicates, as
Hester believes, that among the south Texas Indians who entered the
missions,

only a small percentage (in my opinion)---and this is difficult to
quantify---were ever partly or fully acculturated. The last lived on in
identifiable Indian households in the San Antonio and Goliad areas for
two or three decades into the nineteenth century...It would seem from
the meager evidence...that certain precontact technologies had continued
(1989c:225).

The indigenous peoples that lived in south Texas during the Late
Prehistoric, Protohistoric, and Historic/Mission eras are often referred
to as "Coahuiltecan" or "Coahuilteco." The Coahuiltecans, along with the
Karankawa, are believed to represent the culmination of 11,000 years of
prehistory (Hester 1980:38). Johnson suggests that some of the Late
Prehistoric Toyah peoples of south Texas may have been Coahuilteco
speakers. Specific artifacts, including Guerrero points and Goliad ware,
are linked to mission Indians, including Coahuiltecans and other south
Texas natives who lived at Mission San Juan. That aboriginal
technologies persisted throughout the mission period and thereafter is
attested to by the presence of Goliad ware at non-mission sites of
Spanish colonial San Antonio (San Fernando). Archaeological data from
south Texas and Mission San Juan in particular are consistent with
historic records that native peoples of south Texas, generally termed
Coahuiltecan, inhabited Mission San Juan and were buried there as well.

Table 15. Assumptions of cultural affiliation of Mission Indian material
culture.

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| **Reference**                     | **Commentary**                    |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Schuetz, M.K.                     | "The recovery of a large sample   |
|                                   | of Indian pottery from San Juan   |
| 1969 *The History and Archaeology | has allowed us to reconstruct     |
| of Mission San Juan Capistrano,   | several vessels to a point where  |
| San Antonio, Texas. II.           | some shapes and sizes can be      |
| Description of the Artifacts and  | determined . . . \[Numerous       |
| Ethno-History of the Coahuiltecan | sherds\] add more data to this    |
| Indians.* Report No. 11. State    | category of Coahuiltecan-made     |
| Building Commission               | pottery" (p. 62).                 |
| Archaeological Program, Austin.   |                                   |
|                                   | "Ceramic pipes were made by the   |
|                                   | Coahuiltecans. Figure 36F shows   |
|                                   | the cross section of one" (p.     |
|                                   | 67).                              |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | "The clay with bone tempering     |
|                                   | used by local Coahuiltecan        |
|                                   | potters is certainly similar to   |
|                                   | that found at Espíritu Santo,     |
|                                   | Mission Rosario, and Presidio La  |
|                                   | Bahia in what has lately been     |
|                                   | called *Goliad ware*" (p. 67).    |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | "Other Indian groups may have     |
|                                   | produced them \['block cores'\]   |
|                                   | also, but they can be definitely  |
|                                   | associated with Coahuiltecan      |
|                                   | tribes through a long time span.  |
|                                   | (I have also excavated them from  |
|                                   | a workshop site in Bexar County   |
|                                   | which can be identified as early  |
|                                   | or proto-Coahuiltecan upon the    |
|                                   | association of Tortugas points.)" |
|                                   | (p. 70).                          |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | "All of the flint projectile      |
|                                   | points were found in the Colonial |
|                                   | period Indian midden . . . The    |
|                                   | forty specimens recovered reveal  |
|                                   | the normal range of what I would  |
|                                   | consider as a single type of      |
|                                   | arrowhead produced by             |
|                                   | Coahuiltecan Indians"             |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | (p. 72).                          |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | "Triangular flint points are      |
|                                   | equated with Coahuiltecan use in  |
|                                   | Texas and northern Mexico" (p.    |
|                                   | 81).                              |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Mitchell, J.L                     | "Hester has variously termed such |
|                                   | points \[as have been found at    |
| 1980 Brief Notes on the           | San Juan\] as *Mission            |
| Archaeology of Mission San Juan   | Triangular, Mission,* or          |
| de Capistrano. *La Tierra*        | *Guerrero* points . . . The       |
| 7(4):18-26.                       | arrowpoints recovered from San    |
|                                   | Juan represent an outstanding     |
|                                   | sample of Mission lithic          |
|                                   | technology and clearly            |
|                                   | demonstrate that San Juan         |
|                                   | Coahuiltecan Indians continued to |
|                                   | produce and use flint arrowpoints |
|                                   | during the Mission period" (p.    |
|                                   | 23).                              |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Hester, T.R.                      | "The mixing of Karankawa and      |
|                                   | Coahuiltecan Indians at the       |
| 1980 *Digging into South Texas    | Goliad missions may have led to   |
| Prehistory*. Corona Publishing    | the use of asphaltum decoration"  |
| Co., San Antonio.                 | (p. 126).                         |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Hinojosa, G.M. and A.A. Fox       | "the presence of numerous         |
|                                   | fragments of Coahuiltecan         |
| 1991 Indians and Their Culture in | artifacts in the town proper      |
| San Fernando de Béxar. In *Tejano | indicates a widespread acceptance |
| Origins in Eighteenth-Century San | of Indian culture" (p. 106).      |
| Antonio*, edited by G.E. Poyo and |                                   |
| G.M. Hinojosa, pp. 105-120*.*     | "There \[in the villa of San      |
| University of Texas Press,        | Fernando\] these natives found    |
| Austin.                           | other Coahuiltecans and Indians   |
|                                   | from the interior" (p. 111).      |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | "Towards the end of the           |
|                                   | eighteenth century, however,      |
|                                   | Indian containers were phased     |
|                                   | out, possibly because the         |
|                                   | Coahuiltecan and Karankawa        |
|                                   | population both inside and        |
|                                   | outside the mission declined" (p. |
|                                   | 117).                             |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

Chapter 10:

BIOARCHAEOLOGY

Jennifer L. Logan

A detailed review of bioarchaeological literature on the south Texas
Indians was undertaken to provide the San Antonio Missions National
Historical Park (SAAN) with basic knowledge for evaluating issues
pertaining to NAGPRA. Currently, the lineal descent of present-day
community members who claim descent from San Juan's mission Indians is
being investigated. Knowledge of research findings on the relationships
of various indigenous groups of south Texas to one another will be of
use in understanding the cultural affiliation of mission Indians
originally housed at Mission San Juan.

The skeletal biology of Texas Indians is a subject in which researchers
have shown an increasing interest over the past several decades. Steele
and Olive (1989:99) note that over 60 percent of bioarchaeological
research pertaining to central and southern Texas has been published
within the last 30 years. Although several topics have been of interest
to bioarchaeologists and physical anthropologists in Texas, review of
the available literature revealed two topics in particular that stand
out as primary research interests: (1) developing an understanding of
the biological relationships between various subgroups of indigenous
peoples residing in Texas during the pre-contact period; and (2)
assessing the health status of Late Prehistoric and post-contact (i.e.,
Historic) era populations. For a comprehensive listing of
bioarchaeological studies conducted on south Texas historic and
prehistoric skeletal remains, see Steele and Olive (1989 and 1990).

Regional Skeletal Populations

Efforts directed towards understanding skeletal characteristics within
and between native groups underlie interpretations of the genetic
relationships of indigenous populations in Texas. In an analysis of
skeletal material from the western portion of the Gulf Coastal Plain,
including the San Antonio area and south Texas, Steele and Olive
(1990:428) assigns the bulk of the human remains to the
"Forager/Gatherer-Hunter" adaptation type. This lifestyle lasted
thousands of years and included seasonal exploitation of plant foods by
many groups living in southern and central Texas (Story et al.
1990:426). While analyses of historic populations in the area are few,
most scholars have seen the Foragers/Gatherer-Hunters as representing
numerous biological populations with similar land-use strategies (Steele
and Olive 1990:428).

Questions concerning the relationships between skeletal remains tend to
follow a pattern of characterizing pre-contact populations according to
geographical location. Comparisons of pre-contact coastal and inland
groups have been given a great deal of attention. Steele and Olive's
(1989) summary of previous bioarchaeological research in the central,
southern, and lower Pecos areas of Texas indicates that researchers have
perceived skeletal features that distinguish coastal from inland
populations. However, analysis of long bones from sites with varying
temporal and geographic distributions in Texas led Doran (1975:62) to
the conclusion that there existed no significant differences among
regional populations, even between prehistoric agricultural and
hunter-gatherer groups. Doran suggests that the nutritional status of
these populations, rather than genetic homogeneity, is the most likely
explanation for the high overall consistency he observed in stature and
long bone length among Texas Indians.

The contrast between the results of Doran's study and the conclusions
drawn in most previous bioarchaeological studies of Texas Indians
highlights one of the complications researchers encounter when trying to
infer biological relationships from the archeological record. Perhaps
Steele and Olive best sum up the situation:

the biological relationship of the coastal strip populations to other
populations within Region 3 \[central, southern and Lower Pecos Texas\]
has been a recurring theme, and one which future researchers will still
need to assess(1989:114).

General Health Status of Skeletal Populations

Steele and Olive (1989) provide a comprehensive synthesis of the
research history on human skeletal remains from central, southern, and
lower Pecos Texas. They note that, while skeletal remains tend to be
fragmentary and poorly preserved, many pathological observations can
still be made (Steele and Olive 1989:114). Medical disorders can be
classified into five categories---metabolic disease (e.g., anemia),
degenerative diseases (e.g., osteoarthritis), infectious disease (e.g.,
bacterial infections), dental disorders (e.g., cavities, abscesses,
tooth loss), and trauma (e.g., bone fractures and injuries).

Reinhard et al. (1989) carried out a study on prehistoric skeletal
remains excavated in the western portion of the Gulf Coastal Plain of
Texas and central, southern, and lower Pecos Texas that pertains
directly to the ancestors of San Antonio's mission Indian population.
Their findings reveal increases in dental wear, tooth loss, and caries
(cavities) with increasing distance inland from the coast. The numbers
of burials indicating trauma associated with interpersonal violence also
increased with distance from the coast, particularly in the south Texas
coastal plain (Reinhard et al. 1989:139). In fact, the only medical
disorder not displaying obvious regional patterns is degenerative
disease (arthritis, osteophytosis), which was very common throughout the
region under study (Table 16).

Paleopathological analysis of pre-contact and post-contact indigenous
skeletal remains from the coastal plain in Texas provided evidence that
the pre-contact population was more heavily impacted by pathological
conditions, including porotic hyperostosis, osteomyelitis, treponemal
infection, vertebral osteoarthritis, caries, and abscess, than the
post-contact population (Reinhard et al. 1990:139). A significant
increase in the occurrence of arthritis, dental wear, and dental disease
resulting in tooth loss distinguished the post-contact population from
the pre-contact population (Table 17).

Skeletal Remains from Mission San Juan

Comparison of pre-contact skeletal remains from south Texas with
post-contact skeletal remains of known or presumed cultural affinity was
made possible in the late 1960s with excavations commissioned by the
Catholic Archdiocese at Mission San Juan Capistrano (Figure 27) (Schuetz
1968, 1969, 1974, 1980b). These excavations revealed that at least three
churches were built on the site. The first stone church (Room 31), built
between 1756 and 1762, is located in the southeast corner of the mission
compound

Table 16. Summary of pathological data by region (after Reinhard et al.
1989:138, Table 22).

+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| *           | **Coastal   | **Interior  | **Central   | **Lower     |
| *Category** | Strip**     | Coastal     | Texas**     | Pecos**     |
|             |             | Plain**     |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| *           |             |             |             |             |
| *Infectious |             |             |             |             |
| Disease**   |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Pe        | 16%         | 42%         | 3%          | 6%          |
| riostitis** |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Specific  | 4%^a^       | 0%          | 0%          | 0%          |
| Insult**    |             |             |             |             |
|             |             |             |             |             |
| **(^a       |             |             |             |             |
| ^Treponemal |             |             |             |             |
| I           |             |             |             |             |
| nfection)** |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Dental    |             |             |             |             |
| Disease**   |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Caries**  | 9%          | 21%         | 14%         | 50%         |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Abscess** | 6%          | 16%         | 36%         | 55%         |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| *           | 6%          | 44%         | 22%         | 86%         |
| *Antemortem |             |             |             |             |
| Tooth       |             |             |             |             |
| Loss**      |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Mode      | 58%         | 63%         | 60%         | 64%         |
| rate/Severe |             |             |             |             |
| Tooth       |             |             |             |             |
| Loss**      |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| *           |             |             |             |             |
| *Accidental |             |             |             |             |
| and         |             |             |             |             |
| Aggressive  |             |             |             |             |
| Trauma**    |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| *           | 0%          | 3%          | 0%          | 14%         |
| *Accidental |             |             |             |             |
| Fracture**  |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Parry     | 6%          | 3%          | 13%         | 0%          |
| Fracture**  |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Cranial   | 7%          | 3%          | 5%          | 5%          |
| Fracture**  |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| *           | 5%          | 14%         | 19%         | 0%          |
| *Projectile |             |             |             |             |
| Wound**     |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Metabolic |             |             |             |             |
| Disease**   |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Enamel    | 19%         | 37%         | NA          | 86%         |
| H           |             |             |             |             |
| ypoplasia** |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Harris    | NA          | NA          | NA          | 50%         |
| Lines**     |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Porotic   | 0%          | 16%         | 12%         | 4%          |
| Hyp         |             |             |             |             |
| erostosis** |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **Cribra    | 5%          | 3%          | 0%          | 0%          |
| Orbitalia** |             |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+

Table 17. Comparison of historic and prehistoric pathological
frequencies in coastal populations (after Reinhard et al. 1989:139,
Table 26).

  ----------------------- ----------------------- -----------------------
  **Specific              **Prehistoric**         **Historic**
  Pathologies**                                   

  Enamel Hypoplasia       NA                      15%

  Harris Lines            NA                      NA

  Porotic Hyperostosis    30%                     0%

  Vertebral               34%                     0%
  Osteoarthritis                                  

  Osteophytosis           0%                      6%

  Appendicular Arthritis  38%                     64%

  Periostitis             6%                      46%

  Osteomyelitis           8%                      0%

  Specific Insults        8%                      0%
  (Treponemal)                                    

  Caries                  65%                     21%

  Abscess                 35%                     21%

  Antemortem Tooth Loss   25%                     45%

  Dental Wear             20%                     52%

  Accidental Fracture     6%                      8%

  Parry Fracture          0%                      0%

  Cranial Fracture        0%                      5%

  Projectile Wound        15%                     20%
  ----------------------- ----------------------- -----------------------

(Schuetz 1980b). The second, "unfinished" church (Room 26) was built
around 1762 and used until approximately 1777, or shortly thereafter
(Schuetz 1968:215-217), and is located on the eastern wall of the
compound. The modern chapel (Room 17) on the west wall of the compound
was constructed and was in use by 1785 (Schuetz 1974:1, 48).

Mission San Juan was established for several Coahuiltecan bands, among
them the Orejónes, Sayopines, Pamaques, Piquiques, Thelojas, and Venados
(Schuetz 1968:13). Excavations in 1967 resulted in the recovery of human
remains representing at least 53 individuals from the floor of the
unfinished church (Room 26). Schuetz (1968:214) dated these burials from
1764 to the 1780s, asserting that they represent a pure sample of
historic Coahuiltecan peoples. As a result of a second round of
excavations in 1969, the remains of at least 92 other individuals were
removed from the floor of the extant church, known archaeologically as
Room 17 (Figure 27). In her report on the results of those excavations,
Schuetz (1974:31-32) noted that the remains recovered from beneath the
church floor (Room 17) were probably buried some time between the years
1793 and 1862 and appear to represent a racially mixed population.

Excavations in 1971 exposed additional burials in the floor of the first
stone church (Room 31) and in the *convento* complex located in what
came to be the southwest portion of the enlarged mission compound
(Figure 32). A number of empty graves and scattered grave goods
including rosaries and glass beads were also exposed during the 1971
excavations. Schuetz (1980b) maintains her belief that, once
construction of the "unfinished" church (Room 26) was underway, the
first stone church was de-sanctified and the associated burials exhumed
and reburied underneath the floor of the new church. The results of the
1971 investigations are documented in Schuetz's (1980b) unpublished
manuscript on file at the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park
headquarters. She reported exposing the remains of at least 12
individuals in Rooms 19, 23, 31, 34, and in test pits along the south
wall (Figure 32). These remains consisted of at least four complete or
nearly complete skeletons, three crania, and miscellaneous post-cranial
elements (Table 18).

Insofar as is known, human remains were not removed from the first stone
church (Room 31) and *convento* (Rooms 19, 22, and 23) during the 1971
field season, with the exception of a few isolated bones included in the
inventories. No studies were undertaken on skeletal material located
during the 1971 excavations. Schuetz's inventory of recovered material
lists only fragments of human bone and one adult skeleton, but there is
no mention in the text of collecting any of the human remains uncovered.
To complicate matters, the manuscript does not include a description of
excavations in Rooms 32 and 33, but it does include inventories of
numerous artifacts recovered from those rooms. Descriptions of
excavations in Rooms 19, 20, and 21 are included in the text, but the
inventory lists do not include artifacts from those rooms. In any case,
Schuetz (1980b) noted in her conclusions that it seemed likely that the
entire plaza and *convento* rooms for the first church were built over
the earliest mission period graves.

Following excavation, the remains from the extant chapel (Room 17) were
permanently curated at the Center for Archeological Research at the
University of Texas at San Antonio. Skeletal material from the
unfinished church (Room 26) was sent at different times to Southern
Methodist University, Texas A&M University, and CAR-UTSA for analytical
purposes. Additionally, bone samples from the skeletal remains recovered
from the unfinished church

![](media/image3.jpeg){width="6.186111111111111in" height="3.20625in"}

Figure 27. Map with locations of burial places revealed after subsequent
excavations shown. Adapted from Schuetz (1968:Figure 1, 1974, and
1980b).

(Room 26) were utilized in mitochondrial DNA research at the University
of California at Davis (Hard, personal communication 1999) and stable
isotope analysis at Geochron Laboratories based in Massachusetts (Table
19).

Studies of skeletal remains from the unfinished and extant churches
resulted in a number of professional studies, including the DNA research
at the University of California (Table 19) and recent research by
individuals representing the Smithsonian Institution (Francis 1999:124).
Five theses (Comuzzie 1987; Cargill 1996; Francis 1999; Humphreys 1971;
Miller 1989) have also been written using the remains from Mission San
Juan as a data set (Table 20). Only one study (Francis 1999) included
human remains from both the unfinished church (Room 26) and the extant
chapel (Room 17); all other research utilizing the San Juan burials has
included only the skeletal remains from the unfinished church (Room 26).

The availability of a comparative sample of historic Texas Indians with
known cultural affiliations (e.g., the Coahuiltecans) promoted an
increase in bioarchaeological studies addressing the biological
affinities of historic indigenous populations in Texas. Most researchers
(cf. Schuetz 1974:31; D. Gentry Steele, personal communication 1999)
believe that the burials recovered from the chapel (Room 17) represent a
population already experiencing considerable gene flow between
indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. However, Schuetz's (1968:214-215)
characterization of the unfinished church (Room 26) burials as purely
Coahuiltecan, dating to 1763-1785, has been questioned.

The first use of the San Juan skeletal material in a master's thesis was
by Humphreys (1971). Her study was undertaken to provide "a thorough
description of the skeletal biology of the Coahuiltecan Indians as a
single Indian group" (Humphreys 1971:151). She described the 26 burials
in terms of their epigenetic variation, finding a great deal of
variation in the expression of skeletal traits in her analysis of the
burials from the unfinished church (Room 26) at San

Table 18. Human bone reported by Schuetz's excavations at Mission San
Juan 1967, 1969, and 1971.

<table style="width:100%;">
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 7%" />
<col style="width: 13%" />
<col style="width: 2%" />
<col style="width: 7%" />
<col style="width: 11%" />
<col style="width: 8%" />
<col style="width: 13%" />
<col style="width: 2%" />
<col style="width: 10%" />
<col style="width: 23%" />
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td colspan="2"><p><strong>1967 Unfinished Church</strong></p>
<p><strong>(Room 26)</strong></p></td>
<td></td>
<td colspan="4"><p><strong>1969 Extant Chapel</strong></p>
<p><strong>(Room 17)</strong></p></td>
<td></td>
<td colspan="2"><p><strong>1971 First Stone Church (Room
31)</strong></p>
<p><strong>And <em>Convento</em> (Rooms 19, 23, 34)</strong></p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><strong>Burial #</strong></td>
<td><strong>MNI</strong></td>
<td></td>
<td><strong>Burial #</strong></td>
<td><strong>MNI</strong></td>
<td><strong>Burial #</strong></td>
<td><strong>MNI</strong></td>
<td></td>
<td><strong>Burial #</strong></td>
<td><strong>MNI</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>1</td>
<td>1 (femur and pelvis)</td>
<td></td>
<td>A</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>8C</td>
<td>2</td>
<td></td>
<td>Room 19 (armory)</td>
<td>3 (3 crania, 2 tibia, distal end of a femur, portions of arm bones);
not inventoried</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>2</td>
<td><p>“several”</p>
<p>(infants)</p></td>
<td></td>
<td>B</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>9</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td>Test Pit 2 along South Wall</td>
<td>2; not inventoried</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>3</td>
<td>3 (3 feet, 1 fibula)</td>
<td></td>
<td>C/6C</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>10A</td>
<td>4</td>
<td></td>
<td>Test Pit 5 along South Wall</td>
<td>1; not inventoried</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>4</td>
<td>“5 or 6”</td>
<td></td>
<td>D</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>10B</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td>Room 23 (western half)</td>
<td>4 (2?); inventoried fragments of human infant bone, human adult
skeleton</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>5</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td>E</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>10C</td>
<td>2</td>
<td></td>
<td>Room 31</td>
<td>1 (11 oz. human bone); inventoried</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>6</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td>F</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>11</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td>Room 34 (sacristy)</td>
<td>1 (scattered bone); not inventoried</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>7</td>
<td>4 (7A-7D)</td>
<td></td>
<td>G</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>12A</td>
<td>2</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>8</td>
<td>4 (8A-8D)</td>
<td></td>
<td>1</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>12B</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>9</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td>2A</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>12C</td>
<td>3</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>10</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td>2B</td>
<td>1 (lost)</td>
<td>13</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>11</td>
<td>8 (11A-11H)</td>
<td></td>
<td>2C</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>14A</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>12</td>
<td>3 (12A-12C)</td>
<td></td>
<td>3A</td>
<td>5</td>
<td>14B</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>13</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td>3B</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>15A</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>14</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td>4A</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>15B</td>
<td>2</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>15</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td>4B</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>16A</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>16</td>
<td>6 (16A-16F)</td>
<td></td>
<td>5</td>
<td>1 (unexcavated)</td>
<td>16B</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>17</td>
<td>3 (17A-17C)</td>
<td></td>
<td>6A</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>17</td>
<td>4</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>18</td>
<td>4 (18A-18D)</td>
<td></td>
<td>6B</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>18</td>
<td>2</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td>6C</td>
<td>(same as C/6C)</td>
<td>19A</td>
<td>2 (infant, extra ulna)</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td>7</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>19B</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td>8A</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>20</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td>8B</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>21</td>
<td>1</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td colspan="2"><h2 id="total-48"><strong>TOTAL 48</strong></h2></td>
<td></td>
<td colspan="2"></td>
<td colspan="2"><h2 id="total-73"><strong>TOTAL 73</strong></h2></td>
<td></td>
<td colspan="2"><h2 id="total-12"><strong>TOTAL 12</strong></h2></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td colspan="2"><strong>Note:</strong> 53 analyzed; 10 infants, 3
maxilla not analyzed; total 66 per Humphreys (1969:116)</td>
<td></td>
<td colspan="2"></td>
<td colspan="2"><strong>Note:</strong> 92 represented as per Schuetz
(1974:31)</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td><strong>Note:</strong> MNIs not provided by author; grand total =
researcher’s count from text descriptions</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Juan. Humphreys' was the first bioarchaeological study on the San Juan
human remains to assert:

The Coahuiltecans were, at this time, a highly variable group of
people---evidently not representing a homogeneous gene pool . . . Data
from the present study show a large enough biological variability
present in the Coahuiltecan population to warrant reconsideration of the
term 'Coahuiltecan,' in investigations of the archaeology and
ethnohistory of these peoples (1971:162-163).

Francis' (1999) thesis was the only one that provided provenience (i.e.,
locational data) for all the remains included in a given study. Francis
argued that he alone examined remains from the extant chapel (Room 17),
from which it was originally reported that 92 individuals were
recovered, in addition to the remains from the unfinished church (Room
26). Francis (1999: 29-30) noted the diversity in the skeletal
characteristics of the San Juan burials, pointing out that such
heterogeneity suggests that biological amalgamation had occurred among
the Indians who entered San Juan during the protohistoric or the
Colonial period. Further research indicated that the remains of 41 out
of 49 individuals from the unfinished church (Room 26) displayed Native
American skeletal characteristics, one individual possessed admix
characteristics, and seven individuals had unidentifiable morphological
traits. Of those recovered from the floor of the extant church (Room
17), only 27 of the 54 individuals studied had identifiable
morphological characteristics. Fourteen of those individuals appeared to
represent Native Americans, while 13 of the 27 had "admix and/or
Caucasoid traits" (Francis 1999:55).

To answer the issue of the remains' representativeness of the
Coahuiltecans, Francis points to a number of ways in which

Table 19. Institutions housing skeletal material from Mission San Juan
Capistrano.

  ----------------- --------------- ------------ ----------------- -----------------------
  **Institution**   **Location**    **Date**     **Purpose**       **Provenience of
                                                                   Remains**

  Witte Museum      San Antonio,    1968 - ?     Storage           Unfinished church (Room
                    Texas                                          26)

  Southern          Dallas, Texas   1969?-1979   On loan for       Unfinished church (Room
  Methodist                                      student research  26)
  University                                                       

  University of     San Antonio,    1979         Permanent         Unfinished church (Room
  Texas at San      Texas                        curation          26), extant chapel
  Antonio                                                          (Room 17), first stone
                                                                   church (Room 31)

  Mission San Juan  San Antonio,    1986         Reburial of       Unfinished church (Room
  Capistrano,       Texas                        skeletal remains  26)
  Museum                                         on exhibit        

  Texas A&M         College         1986         Temporary         Unfinished church (Room
  University        Station, Texas               transfer for      26)
                                                 student research  

  Geochron          Cambridge,      1993         Stable isotope    Unfinished church (Room
  Laboratories      Massachusetts                analysis for      26)
                                                 student research  

  University of     San Antonio,    1993         Curation and      Unfinished church (Room
  Texas at San      Texas                        student research  26), extant chapel
  Antonio                                                          (Room 17), first stone
                                                                   church (Room 31)

  University of     Davis,          after 1993   Mitochondrial DNA Unfinished church (Room
  California at     California                   analysis          26)
  Davis                                                            
  ----------------- --------------- ------------ ----------------- -----------------------

Table 20. Master's theses concerning skeletal populations from Mission
San Juan Capistrano.

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| **Thesis citation**               | **Skeletal population studied**   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Humphreys, S.B.                   | Remains from the unfinished       |
|                                   | church (Room 26).                 |
| 1971 The Skeletal Biology of      |                                   |
| Eighteenth Century Coahuiltecan   |                                   |
| Indians from San Juan Capistrano  |                                   |
| Mission, San Antonio, Texas.      |                                   |
| Unpublished                       |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| Master's thesis, Department of    |                                   |
| Anthropology, Southern Methodist  |                                   |
| University                        |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Comuzzie, A.G.                    | One pre-contact Karankawa         |
|                                   | population (Palm Harbor, site     |
| 1987 The Bioarchaeology of Blue   | 41AS80), one pre-contact coastal  |
| Bayou: A Late Prehistoric         | population (Blue Bayou, site      |
| Mortuary Site from Victoria       | 41VT94), remains from unfinished  |
| County, Texas. Unpublished        | church (Room 26) at Mission San   |
| Master's thesis, Department of    | Juan.                             |
| Anthropology, Texas A&M           |                                   |
| University.                       |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Miller, E.A.                      | One pre-contact Karankawa         |
|                                   | population (Palm Harbor, site     |
| 1989 The Effect of European       | 41AS80), one pre-contact coastal  |
| Contact on the Health of          | population (Blue Bayou, site      |
| Indigenous Populations in Texas.  | 41VT94), remains from Mission San |
| Unpublished                       | Xavier (Milam County), remains    |
|                                   | from unfinished church (Room 26)  |
| Master's thesis, Department of    | at Mission San Juan.              |
| Anthropology, Texas A&M           |                                   |
| University.                       |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Cargill, D.A.                     | Remains from unfinished church    |
|                                   | (Room 26) at Mission San Juan.    |
| 1996 Stable Isotope Analysis at   |                                   |
| Mission San Juan de Capistrano,   |                                   |
| San Antonio, Texas. Unpublished   |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| Master's thesis, Department of    |                                   |
| Anthropology University of Texas  |                                   |
| at San Antonio.                   |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Francis, J.R.                     | Remains from unfinished church    |
|                                   | (Room 26) and extant chapel (Room |
| 1999 Temporal Trends in Mission   | 17) at Mission San Juan.          |
| Populations: A Comparison of      |                                   |
| Pathological Frequencies and Long |                                   |
| Bone Length at Mission San Juan   |                                   |
| de Capistrano, San Antonio,       |                                   |
| Texas. Unpublished Master's       |                                   |
| thesis, Department of             |                                   |
| Anthropology, University of Texas |                                   |
| at San Antonio.                   |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

culturally induced bias can influence burial patterns. The depopulation
of the missions by escape or disease and the continual recruitment of
replacements in large part determined the demographics of the missions
during the Colonial period. After secularization, intermarriage was the
dominant factor influencing the demographic shift of the mission
population, with Native American exogamous marriages outnumbering
endogamous marriages almost three to one (Francis 1999:50-51). During
the Colonial period, Francis (1999:47) notes that children of converted
Native Americans not in good standing with the mission's religious
authorities may have been buried outside of the church, in the
*camposanto*. Furthermore, the most pious of Catholics preferred burial
inside the church. The most expensive sites were those closest to the
altars, with the least expensive being situated near the door. After the
rental period expired, the grave became available for new burials and
the remains of the previous burial were either "unceremoniously tossed"
or reinterred in the same grave (Francis 1999:55-56). Francis (1999:128)
determined that "based on the nature of Catholic mortuary practices, it
is those Native Americans that adopted Spanish culture which are
represented by this study." The effects of European contact on native
groups in Texas were considerable, and included population decimation,
dispersal, fragmentation, and recombination of native groups on a grand
scale. Those factors, combined with the extensive acculturation of
indigenous Texans located at the missions, led Francis (1999:124) to the
ultimate conclusion that "when consideration is made of the
archaeological and cultural circumstances of the mission, it is more
likely that the individuals in Room 26 are not representative of native
populations in general" (it is assumed that Francis was referring to
pre-contact native populations).

Many studies (e.g., Cargill 1996; Comuzzie 1987) also engage in the
comparison of Karankawan skeletal remains with Coahuiltecans as
representatives of coastal and inland populations. Comparative studies
tend to support the observations already arrived at by other researchers
(e.g., Wilkinson 1977) who observed significant homogeneity in the
skeletal morphology of coastal peoples, while inland populations
appeared more heterogeneous in nature. Comuzzie (1987:40-42) compared
two pre-contact coastal skeletal populations---one identified as
Karankawa---with the skeletal remains from the unfinished church (Room
26) at Mission San Juan. He concluded as well that the coastal groups
are more similar to one another than either is to San Juan and that the
San Juan population was most likely not a biologically homogenous
sample. It should also be noted that stable isotope analysis conducted
on burials excavated from the unfinished church (Room 26) at Mission San
Juan (Cargill 1996) indicates that freshwater or marine resources were a
major component of the mission Indians' diet. Although it is possible
that the data indicate a coastal origin for the indigenous population at
Mission San Juan, ubiquitous mussel shell debris in the archaeological
record from south Texas (Black 1989:44, 47) supports Cargill's findings.
It is evident, however, that the relationship between coastal and inland
groups remains poorly understood.

Although the heterogeneity of the human remains from Mission San Juan
prevents the remains from possessing equal degrees of representativeness
of the mission population, the burials were probably dominated by Native
Americans, including Coahuiltecans. The accessibility of the human
remains also facilitated efforts to address more specifically the health
status of indigenous populations in a contact period framework.
Paleopathological studies were conducted to assess the effects of
European contact in terms of the spread of disease and the level of
stress expressed by the indigenous population in response to enforced
culture change and change in subsistence and diet.

Humphreys conducted an initial analysis of the skeletal remains
recovered from the unfinished church (Room 26) for Schuetz (1969). In
the text of this preliminary study, Humphreys (1971:116) states that the
total number of individuals analyzed equals 53, not counting the remains
of 10 infants and three maxilla. Counts of the minimum number of
individuals (MNI) taken from textual descriptions of each burial
analyzed come to a total of 48. Her analysis consists of a discussion of
the pathological markers observed in the skeletal population, with a
brief general description of the physical characteristics of the
population. Humphreys (1971:123) noted that the skeletal population was
dominated by young and middle-aged adults who had "an unusually high
percentage of pathological conditions."

Miller (1989) compared two mission Indian skeletal populations. One
skeletal population was from Mission San Xavier, a short-lived (eight
years) mission established in 1748 on the San Gabriel river in central
Texas for the Mayeye, Yerbipiame, and Yojuane (Miller 1989:43-44). The
other population consisted of the burials from the unfinished church
(Room 26) from Mission San Juan. While not giving a provenience for the
skeletal population she analyzed, Miller states that her research
involved analysis of 92 individuals from Mission San Juan. Ninety-two
individuals is the number originally arrived at for the burials from the
extant chapel (Room 17), while a far lower number of individuals has
consistently been estimated in previous inventories for human remains
recovered from the unfinished church (Room 26). Miller's data and
conclusions, however, are incompatible with assessments of the health
status and age of the remains from the extant church. Miller (1994)
states in a later version of her analysis that the burials she examined
date from 1760-1785, the time period assigned to the unfinished church
(Room 26). If Miller did indeed analyze the remains from the unfinished
church rather than the extant chapel, there is no information on how she
estimated the number of individuals in her study. Francis (1999:124)
suggests that the discrepancy is due to the commingled and fragmented
nature of the human remains analyzed, but the question remains
unanswered (Robert Hard, personal communication 1999).

Miller compared the two mission Indian populations against two
prehistoric coastal samples. She found that "with the exception of
dental disorders, the pathological conditions used to indicate stress in
the \[mission\] populations rarely occurred in the two prehistoric
samples" (Miller 1989:89). Conditions such as cribra orbitalia and
periostal infection, features indicative of anemia and infectious
disease respectively, were higher in the Mission San Juan sample than in
the sample from San Xavier Mission, a phenomenon she attributes to
earlier acculturation of San Juan's indigenous recruits (Miller
1989:98). The symptoms of chronic stress expressed in the Mission San
Juan sample---parasitism, infectious disease, nutritional
deficiencies---are well-documented occurrences in populations shifting
from a hunting and gathering subsistence base to agriculture. Miller
(1989:103-104) also places importance on the negative health costs that
can result from psychological stress due to rapid cultural change,
observing that the effects of European contact cannot be separated from
the effects of a change in subsistence from hunting and gathering to
agriculture. The results of Reinhard et al.'s (1990) analysis are
opposed to Miller's findings. Specifically, Miller (1989:89) observed
very little evidence of stress-induced pathological conditions in the
two pre-contact coastal populations she examined.

The increase in the occurrence of pathological conditions from
pre-contact to post-contact indigenous populations was not observed by
Francis (1999), who utilized both the Room 26 and Room 17 samples in his
examination of temporal trends in health status among mission Indian
populations in Texas. While native peoples entering Mission San Juan had
suffered from disease epidemics and depopulation, Francis (1999:128)
hypothesizes that the low rates of pathologies related to chronic stress
indicate that the populations from which San Juan recruits were drawn
may have developed immunities prior to entering the mission.

Skeletal Remains from Outside the Mission San Juan Compound

Only one gravesite has been identified outside the mission compound. It
was discovered inadvertently in 1999 during construction of a drainage
channel along the boundary line between Church- and NPS-owned
properties, several hundred feet southwest of the compound (Francis
2000). Archaeological testing carried out on behalf of SAAN by UTSA
personnel in advance of this construction project did not result in the
discovery of any intact Colonial-period deposits, but the final report
recommended archaeological monitoring during the construction phase
(Gross 1998). During mechanical excavation of the drainage channel, the
monitor discovered and collected the exposed remains. As a result, the
drainage channel was rerouted to avoid additional disturbance to the
immediate area. The remains were subsequently analyzed and identified as
a young adult female of Native American origin who was estimated to have
been about 158 cm (ca. 5 ft., 2 in) tall, with no apparent skeletal
pathologies (Francis 2000:34). In his final report entitled "Isolated
Burial Analysis," Francis noted that the remains were returned to SAAN
and reinterred with approval of the Texas Historical Commission, the
agency that issued an Antiquities Permit (# 1748) for the 1996
archaeological testing project.

Concluding Comments

The majority of the bioarchaeological studies of the human remains from
Mission San Juan Capistrano have been undertaken as thesis projects by
graduate students and have focused on health issues that could be
assessed by pathological markers found on the skeletal elements. There
is general agreement among researchers that increases in the incidence
of infectious disease and dental disorders correspond with increasing
distance from the coastal area (Reinhard et al. 1990:139). In other
words, the skeletal record for south Texas in general indicates that
populations further inland show higher rates of these health problems.
Research results also indicate a decline in the health status of
indigenous peoples in Texas as a result of European contact.

Studies on biological affinity have been largely neglected in the past
thirty years, in part because of the rigorous training needed for
analyzing genetic relationships among biological populations, and
because of the time-consuming nature of such research. Studies have also
addressed the nature of biological relationships among populations in
Texas, as determined from differences in skeletal morphology (Comuzzie
1987, Doran 1975). Groups most widely separated geographically tend to
exhibit the most extreme differences; for instance, those residing in
the lower Pecos area are seen to be smaller and less robust than coastal
peoples in Texas (Steele and Olive 1989:100). On the basis of skeletal
robusticity, a high degree of sexual dimorphism and the presence of
numerous rare dental anomalies, the coastal populations are viewed as
being more biologically homogenous group than inland populations (Steele
and Olive 1989:100).

The cultural affiliation of the San Juan remains has long been assumed
to be "Coahuiltecan." The problem lies in the sparse knowledge regarding
the extent of ethnic diversity among the indigenous peoples of south
Texas and northeast Mexico. The human remains from Mission San Juan were
the focus of research in which Indians were distinguished from
non-Indians (Schuetz 1974:31). These remains have been used as a
comparative population in studies that were designed to distinguish
coastal from inland populations (e.g., Karankawa from Coahuiltecan)
(Comuzzie 1987:40-42; Steele and Olive 1989:100). The San Juan mission
Indians were also distinguished from eighteenth-century Indian
populations at Mission San Xavier on the basis of observed skeletal
characteristics; Miller observed more homogeneity among the San Juan
skeletal remains than among the remains from San Xavier (Miller 1989:46,
56). However, because cultural affiliation studies comparing the human
remains from San Juan with other historically known indigenous south
Texans (e.g., Pamaque with Payaya) or with modern descendants of mission
Indian peoples have not been undertaken, the extent of gene flow between
indigenous and non-indigenous individuals at Mission San Juan can only
be inferred, not assessed.

In spite of the overall consensus among researchers on the points
discussed above, a number of inconsistencies exist among researchers'
evaluations of the extent to which pathological disease affected the San
Juan Indian population. It is clear that the same phenomena have not
been consistently observed. For instance, Francis does not feel that
examination of the skeletal evidence justifies Humphreys' and Miller's
conclusions that indigenous populations of Texas were plagued with high
rates of disease related to chronic stress after the period of European
contact. Inconsistencies in the analytical results and interpretations
presented in several theses stem from analyses of different sets of
skeletal remains from different burial places, the use of varying
analytical techniques, and different research focuses. Briefly, the
remains recovered from the unfinished church (Room 26) have been assumed
to represent a less culturally and ethnically mixed population than the
remains recovered from the extant chapel (Room 17) (Schuetz
1968:214-215, 1974:31-32). Additionally, some believe that the skeletal
population recovered from the floor of the unfinished church exhibits
more evidence of pathological health conditions related to chronic
stress than the individuals buried in the extant chapel (Miller
1989:89).

The assumptions concerning the provenience of the samples studied have
been particularly troublesome. Schuetz (1974) states that she recovered
the remains of 92 individuals from Room 17, but a count taken from text
descriptions of each burial equals 73 (Table 18). Comparisons between
the number of individuals described in Humphreys' and Miller's theses
with the number of individuals stated are also inconsistent (Table 21).
These discrepancies may be attributable to differences in methods used
to calculate the MNI for each study. A variety of different methods for
calculating MNIs exist and can result in different totals for the same
sample. In any event, those discrepancies may not be resolvable

.

Table 21. Preliminary comparison of MNIs for skeletal remains from
unfinished church (Room 26), Mission San Juan.

+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| **Hu    |               | **Miller   |                  | *  |     |
| mphreys |               | (1989)**   |                  | *F |     |
| (1969,  |               |            |                  | ra |     |
| 1971)** |               |            |                  | nc |     |
|         |               |            |                  | is |     |
|         |               |            |                  | (1 |     |
|         |               |            |                  | 99 |     |
|         |               |            |                  | 9) |     |
|         |               |            |                  | ** |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| #       | # **MNI**     | # **B      | # **MNI**        | #  | # * |
|  **Buri |               | urial \#** |                  |  * | *MN |
| al \#** |               |            |                  | *B | I** |
|         |               |            |                  | ur |     |
|         |               |            |                  | ia |     |
|         |               |            |                  | l  |     |
|         |               |            |                  | \# |     |
|         |               |            |                  | ** |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 11D     | 1 (old male)  | 26B11D     | 2 (1 adult       | N  |     |
|         |               |            | female, 1 adult  | /A |     |
|         |               |            | indet.)          |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 11E     | 1 (adult      | 26B11E     | 1 (adult female) |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 11F     | 1 (adult      | 26B11F     | 1 (adult female) |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 11G     | 1 (adult      | 26B11G     | 1 (adult female) |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 11H     | 2 (1 old      | 26B11H     | 1 (adult indet.) |    |     |
|         | male, 1       |            |                  |    |     |
|         | infant)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
|         |               | 26B        | 1 (adult male)   |    |     |
|         |               | (unident., |                  |    |     |
|         |               | possibly   |                  |    |     |
|         |               | 11)        |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 12A     | 1 (adult      | 26B12A     | 2 (1 adult male, |    |     |
|         | female)       |            | 1 adult indet.)  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 12B     | 1 (adult      | 26B12B     | 1 (adult female) |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 12C     | 1 (adult      | 26B12AB    | 2 (1 adult, 1    |    |     |
|         | female)       |            | subadult)        |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 13A     | 1 (adult)     | 26B13A     | 1 (adult male)   |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 13B, C  | 1 (old male)  | 26B13,     | 2 (1 old male, 1 |    |     |
|         |               | B13B       | indet.)          |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
|         |               | 26B13C     | 1 (old male)     |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 16A1    | 1 (old        | 26B16A     | 2 (1 old male, 1 |    |     |
|         | female)       |            | indet.)          |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 16A2    | 1 (adult      |            |                  |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 16B     | 1 (adult      | 26B16B     | 1 (old male)     |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 16C1    | 1 (adult      | 26B16C     | 1 (adult male)   |    |     |
|         | male)         |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 16C2    | 1 (adult      | 26B16misc. | 3 (1 adult male, |    |     |
|         | male)         |            | 2 adult indet.)  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 16C3    | 1 (adult      |            |                  |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 16C4    | 1 (adult      |            |                  |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 16D     | 1 (old        |            |                  |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 16E     | 1 (adult      |            |                  |    |     |
|         | male)         |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 16F     | 1 (adult      |            |                  |    |     |
|         | male)         |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 17A     | 1 (adult      | 26B17A     | 3 (1 adult male, |    |     |
|         | male)         |            | 2 subadult       |    |     |
|         |               |            | indet.)          |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 17B1    | 2 (1 teen     | 26B17B     | 1 (adult female) |    |     |
|         | female, 1     |            |                  |    |     |
|         | infant)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 17C,    | 2 (subadults, | 26B17A-D   | 1 (subadult      |    |     |
| 17A-D   | 1 male and 1  |            | indet.)          |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 18A     | 1 (adult      | 26B18A     | 1 (adult male)   |    |     |
|         | male)         |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 18B     | 1 (adult      | 26B18B     | 1 (adult female) |    |     |
|         | female)       |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 18C     | 1 (adult      | 26B18C     | 1 (adult male)   |    |     |
|         | male)         |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 18D1    | 1 (adult      | 26B18D     | 2 (1 adult       |    |     |
|         | female)       |            | indet., 1        |    |     |
|         |               |            | subadult indet.) |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 18D2    | 1 (child)     |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| 26,     | 13 (12        | 2          | 18 (15 infants,  |    |     |
| No      | infants, 1    | 6BNWCorner | 3 adults)        |    |     |
| rthwest | adolescent)   |            |                  |    |     |
| Corner  |               |            |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
|         |               | 2          | 3 (adult indet.) |    |     |
|         |               | 6BSWCorner |                  |    |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+
| **TOTAL |               | **TOTAL    |                  | *  |     |
| 63+, no |               | 92^b^**    |                  | *T |     |
| total   |               |            |                  | OT |     |
| given   |               |            |                  | AL |     |
| for     |               |            |                  | 4  |     |
| 19      |               |            |                  | 9* |     |
| 71^a^** |               |            |                  | *^ |     |
|         |               |            |                  | c^ |     |
+---------+---------------+------------+------------------+----+-----+

^a^Humphreys (1969) states that 53 individuals were examined, not
counting 10 infants, a box of fragmentary skeletal remains, and three
unassigned mandibles. Humphreys (1971) does not list the number of
individuals examined, however, 88 individuals were counted from her
descriptions of the burials.

^b^Miller (1989) states that 92 individuals were examined from Room 26
in her study. There is a discrepancy between this statement and the
total MNI counted from her description of each burial in her appendix.

^c^Francis (1999) does not provide descriptions of the individual
burials but counts an MNI of 49 for Room 26 burials

.

[^1]: Coins with Burial 8C: Carolus III, 1772 and 1777, Mexico City
    minted, two real pieces (Schuetz 1968:208).

[^2]: Dog skull underneath Burials 11A-H (Schuetz 1968:210).

[^3]: Burial goods not mentioned in text discussions of burials; only in
    artifact inventories and inventory analyses. The page number
    referring to an inventoried item has been noted above.

[^4]: Burial 19B "of particular interest because of the mandible which
    is stained from a chin tattoo" (Schuetz 1974:31).