page_title: White Sands National Park
section_title: Native people
hierarchical_section_title: White Sands National Park / History / Native people
caption_attribution_description: English: Two Native American Mescalero Apache women stand in their camp near the Mescalero Agency, New Mexico, includes tepees, a brush and canvas ramada (food preparation area,) a burro, a basket, and blankets.
context_page_description: White Sands National Park is an American national park located in the state of New Mexico on U.S. Route 70 approximately 15 miles southwest of Alamogordo and 52 miles northeast of Las Cruces, in western Otero County and northeastern Doña Ana County. The park is situated at an average elevation of about 4,000 feet in the Tularosa Basin and comprises the southern part of a 275 sq mi field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals. The gypsum dunefield is the largest of its kind on Earth.
  The park was originally designated White Sands National Monument on January 18, 1933 by President Herbert Hoover, and redesignated as a national park when Congress passed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act on December 20, 2019. The park encompasses 145,762 acres protecting 115 sq mi of the dunefield, about 41%, while the remaining 160 sq mi are located to the north within White Sands Missile Range. The depth of gypsum sand across the entire field is about 30 feet below the interdunal surface, while the tallest dunes are about 60 feet high. About 4.5 billion short tons of gypsum sand fill the dunefield, which formed about 7,000–10,000 years ago.
context_section_description: A fossil trackway of footprints of humans and ground sloths found at White Sands and dating from the last ice age shows that ground sloths were hunted by humans at least 11,700 years ago. Paleo-Indians inhabited the shoreline of Lake Otero, a large lake that covered much of the Tularosa Basin. They used stone from the mountains to create projectile points, known as Folsom and Plano points, and attached them to spears for hunting mammoths, camels, ground sloths, and bison. Projectile points and stone tools have been found in the basin associated with ancient shorelines, streams, and hills. As the large ice sheet that capped the North American continent receded, Lake Otero began to evaporate, leaving behind Alkali Flat and Lake Lucero. The grassland died and the basin became increasingly arid, slowly changing into desert scrubland. The megafauna disappeared from the basin leaving behind fossil footprints.
  The Archaic people improved upon the hand thrown spear used by Paleo-Indians with the invention of the atlatl. After Lake Otero dried out, wind carried large quantities of gypsum sand up from the basin floor which accumulated into a large dunefield. Archaic people entered the Tularosa Basin about 4,000 years ago, after the dunes had stabilized, possibly attracted by a cereal grass called Indian ricegrass. The first evidence of agriculture is found in the Archaic period. Archaic peoples would tend to wild plants so they would produce in a more reliable manner and in larger quantities than they did naturally. Archaic people started living in small villages throughout the year to tend their fields. Hearth mounds are found within the dunes, which are the remains of prehistoric fires containing charcoal and ash. When gypsum is heated to 300 °F (149 °C) it becomes a plaster that hardens when moisture is added and subsequently evaporates. The plaster cements these hearths in place, preserving them for thousands of years.
  The Jornada Mogollon people made pottery, lived in permanent houses, and farmed the Tularosa Basin. Evidence of their prehistoric presence dates back to about 200 CE. The Jornada Mogollon inhabited the basin until about 1350 CE when they moved away, leaving behind puddled adobe structures and pottery sherds.
  Over 700 years ago, bands of Apaches followed herds of bison from the Great Plains to the Tularosa Basin. The Apaches were nomadic hunters and gatherers who lived in temporary houses known as wickiups and teepees. The Apaches had established a sizable territory in southern New Mexico by the time European explorers arrived. They fiercely defended the rights to their homeland against the encroachment of colonial settlers. Apache groups, led by Victorio and Geronimo, fought with settlers in the basin and engaged in military battles with Buffalo Soldiers. The Battle of Hembrillo Basin in 1880 was a military engagement between Victorio's warriors and the United States Army's 9th Cavalry Regiment of Buffalo Soldiers. The battleground, located on White Sands Missile Range, is the closest archaeological evidence of the Apache Wars (1849 to 1924). Conflict between the Apaches and the American settlers over their conflicting interests in the basin ultimately ended in the forceful removal of the Apaches from their homelands to the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. The Mescalero Apache maintain an active cultural affinity to the landscape of their ancestors.
caption: Two Mescalero Apache women and teepees, c. 1890–1910
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