page_title: Edgar Lee Hewett
section_title: Pajarito Plateau
hierarchical_section_title: Edgar Lee Hewett / Pajarito Plateau
context_page_description: Edgar Lee Hewett was an American archaeologist and anthropologist whose focus was the Native American communities of New Mexico and the southwestern United States. He is best known for his role in gaining passage of the Antiquities Act, a pioneering piece of legislation for the conservation movement; as the founder and first director of the Museum of New Mexico; and as the first president of the New Mexico Normal School, now New Mexico Highlands University.
  Hewett's dealings with Maria Martinez, the great potter of San Ildefonso Pueblo, were instrumental in establishing San Ildefonso as a center for Native American pottery. He helped stimulate the rebirth of pottery as a significant folk art form in the region.
  Hewett also had a significant role in the formation of Bandelier National Monument and Chaco Culture National Historical Park, established to preserve extensive prehistoric ruins of the Pueblo people whom he studied. The Antiquities Act, which he had worked on, authorized the establishment by the executive branch of such national monuments.
context_section_description: Hewett's interest in Frijoles Canyon was timely, for ethnologist Adolph Bandelier had just started to describe, through both scientific papers and his novel The Delight Makers (1890), prehistoric life on the Pajarito Plateau. Hewett came to know Bandelier and consider him his mentor in his own studies. By 1896 Hewett himself was conducting field work on the Plateau, although he continued to defer to Bandelier's expertise on the region for many years.
  Hewett rapidly came to believe that the Plateau's archaeological sites constituted a national resource that should be preserved, and in the 1890s he advocated creation of a "Pajarito National Park" that would protect essentially the entire Plateau. However, the time was not yet ripe for such a step. Contemporary agriculture on the Plateau was not exactly widespread, but such as it was, the ranchers relied upon it for sustenance, and perceived a threat to their economic well-being if the land was put off limits to ranching and farming. (Many years later, Valles Caldera National Preserve was established in the adjoining Jemez Mountains with language that explicitly mandated promoting the economic interests of the region in terms of agriculture and forestry though that law was replaced by new legislation in 2015 moving the Valles Caldera National Preserve to the National Park Service without the economic language.) These pressures, combined with opposition from Santa Clara Pueblo, prevented Pajarito National Park from being approved at that time.
caption: Alcove House, Frijoles Canyon. A similar photograph appears in Hewett's 1943 book
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D70s", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2005:07:23 23:25:47", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "966", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6041", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:07:21 15:28:55", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:07:21 15:28:55", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "28", "EXIF SubSecTime": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "80", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "840", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "42", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}