Welcome “Caminante” to…

Welcome “Caminante” to…. Los Caminos Antiguos Scenic and Historic Byway. , ¡Bienvenidos Caminantes! , Come! Take a walk with us. We know an old song, El Caminante, which tells of taking a long walk along the ancient roads. Like the first prehistoric inhabitants, you too are a “caminante”, or one who walks upon this land. , People of El Valle , Olibama Lopez Tushar, “Almost five hundred years ago, the Navajos began hearing stories from our Pueblo neighbors about the strange men they had seen. These men had thick beards and were dressed in metal helmets and armor. They rode from one place to another on animals that looked like large dogs.” , “As they rode, their iron weapons rattled noisily, and sunlight glinted off their armor. Like a lost war party, they clanked and clanged their way across the American Southwest, stirring up great clouds of dust. We called them Naakaii, or Those-Who-Wander-Around. They were the Spaniards.” , Dinetab: An Early History of the Navajo People , Laurence D. Sundberg, Already well-worn and traveled by the sixteenth century, Los Caminos Antiguos was a perfect inroad for Spanish explorers. , [photo captions] , . Nomadic Native American people left their mark on the San Luis Valley. Their cultures were untouched by outside influences until Juan de Záldivar arrived in 1596. , . This is believed to be an ancient trail marker. “Año (year) 1858” was carved by the first Hispano settlers. , [Exploration and settlement timeline] , 12000 B.P. . Paleoindian People in the San Luis Valley , 550 A.D. . Ancestral Puebloans settle in Mesa Verde , 1000 . Viking explorer, Leif Eriksson, arrives in America , 1350-1500 . Athabascan (Navajo and Apache) People emerge in Southwest , 1400 . Inca Civilization appears in South America , 1492 . Columbus arrives in America , 1565 . St. Augustine, Florida established by Spanish (oldest permanently occupied European settlement in U.S.) , 1596 . Explorer Juan de Záldivar enters the San Luis Valley , 1596-1800s . Spanish and other explorers to the San Luis Valley encounter Indigenous Peoples including the Ute, Apache, and Navajo , 1607 . Santa Fe, New Mexico founded by Spanish , 1607 . Jamestown, Virginia founded by English , 1620 . Mayflower arrives in Massachusetts , 1775-1783 . American Revolutionary War , 1776 . U.S. Declaration of Independence