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1 N 1 '• 31 material remains that consist of both azchitectural features (houses, dugouts, barns, sheds, wells, cisterns, soterranos, hornos, eras, fogon, vigas, latillas, etc.) and the manufactured artifacts (whether manufactured in the eastern and midwestern United States and Europe and transported into the region such as bottle glass, iron, etc.; or traded, natural material such as perdernal (obsidian), or artifacts such as manos and metates, produced of locally obtained sandstone and basalt, and locally produced or imported ceramics that survive in an archaeological context. The perceived cultural patterns originally observed on historical sites within the Purgatoire and Arkansas River valleys, located on the east side of the Sangre de Cristo Range, and subsequently observed in the Huerfano and San Luis valleys of Colorado, and locations in northern New Mexico in the vicinity of Pecos, aze presented to buttress the argument for the archaeological evidence of early Hispanic movement and settlement from northern New Mexico into all of southern Colorado in the region that has been termed the Spanish Borderlands, and more contemporaneously the Spanish-Mexican Rim (Bolton 1964; Weber ] 994). An Integrated Historical Perspective This narrative is presented as an alternate explanation to account for certain arthaeologica] observations from historic sites in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado that do not fit neatly into currently accepted definitions of "prehistoric" or "historic" site groupings. There is a general awazeness of historical events that initially affected both Hispanics and AngloAmericans sepazately. However, these groups began to interact both socially and ecologically after 1821, and extensively after the Mexican-American War in the late 1840s. The interactions created changes in both groups. The prevailing historical events surrounding the conquest, migration and settlement of the American Southwest, including southern Colorado, aze well documented (Atheam 1985; Friedman 1985; Mehls and Carter 1984; Murray 1978; and others). However, the American capitalist influence became more dominant after 1848, and especially began to eclipse the traditional pastoral Hispanic cultural milieu of the former Spanish and Mexican colonies during the 1860s when gold was discovered in the Colorado mountains. Only recently have these historic periods begun to be examined in a balanced format in terms of their cultural and social contexts, i.e. demography, economy, politics and religion. This is true especially of the Mexican period, which preceded the eazliest occupation of the San Luis Valley by only a few yeazs (Bailey and Haulman 1977:243-257; Hudson 1977:11-31; Weber 1982:284-285). The groups of Americans who initially settled the San Luis Valley region in the 1860s carried certain cultural Vaditions from the eastern and midwestern United States, and Europe, in an effort to continue their way of life in a frontier environment. On the other hand, the New Mexicans, ten years eazlier in the 1850s, had introduced a traditional, medieval lifestyle into the San Luis Valley that had been developed not only over a period of more than 250 years of frontier existence, but also from earlier European and Arabic traditions. Many locations in southern Colorado had been used by Spanish and Mexican traders and trappers since the eazly 17th century, but more extensively since the late 18th and early 19th century. As a result, "the Hispanic frontier produced a pattern at least as distinctive as that of the AngloAmerican frontier" (Swadesh 1974:4). 1