GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM MODELING OF DE SOTO'S ROUTE FROM JOARA TO CHIAHA: ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY OF SOUTHEASTERN ROAD NETWORKS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

This research revisits the question of the most likely paths traveled during the 1540 entrada of Hernando de Soto and colonizing efforts of Juan Pardo about 20 years later by utilizing the spatial modeling method of geographic information system (GIS) analysis to evaluate the favorability of different paths and place them within the context of recent archaeological and ethnohistoric research. Analysis results make the larger anthropological point that GIS route modeling should explicitly take into account the size of the party traveling. Routes for small parties are not the same as optimal routes for large armies such as de Soto’s, which included hundreds of people, pieces of equipment, and livestock. The GIS-modeled routes correlate with the distribution of contact-period archaeological sites and attested eighteenth-century routes. More accurate estimation of Spanish routes allows us to better model the Native American social, economic, and political nexus of this period, showing that the residents in far eastern Tennessee were probably part of a dynamic borderlands between the chiefdom of Coosa to the west and the ancestral Cherokee heartland to the east. This anthropological refinement in GIS modeling will be useful in investigating ancient paths of interaction in many parts of the world. Esta investigacion evalua por el metodo de analisis espacial del sistema de informacion geografico (SIG) la favoribilidad de los caminos viajados durante la entrada de Hernando de Soto en 1540 y la colonizacion de Juan Pardo aproximadamente 20 anos mas tarde. Esta informacion sobre caminos favorables considermos en relacion a investigaciones recientes de arqueologia y etnohistoria. El analisis indica que el modelo de las las rutas deberia tomar en cuenta explicitamente el tamano del grupo viajando. Las rutas para uno o dos viajeros no son igual a las para ejercitos grandes como lo de Soto, que incluyo a cientos de personas, equipamiento, y ganado. Las rutas de SIG modelados son apoyadas por la distribucion de los sitios arqueologicos del periodo de contacto y los caminos del siglo XVIII tomado por ejercitos durante la guerra de independencia. Estimacion mas exacta de las rutas espanolas nos permite un mejor modelo del nexo social, economico, y politico indigena de este periodo, mostrando que los residentes en el lejano oriente Tennessee eran probablemente parte de una zona fronteriza dinamica entre las jefaturas de la Coosa por el poniente y la tierra ancestrales de los Cherokee al oriente. Este perspectiva antropologica en el uso de SIG sera util para investigar caminos antiguos en muchas partes del mundo.