The Dismal River Aspect (or Culture) is the name applied to a cultural grouping of archaeological sites spread from southern Colorado across Kansas and Nebraska into South Dakota. The name comes from a first discovery with a cultural definition from the Dismal
The Dismal River Aspect (or Culture) is the name applied to a cultural grouping of archaeological sites spread from southern Colorado across Kansas and Nebraska into South Dakota. The name comes from a first discovery with a cultural definition from the Dismal River area of Nebraska. Artifacts found there led to a distillation of a people of Athapascan descent, related to the peoples now known as Navajos and Apaches. The Dismal River Aspect has been broken down further into Eastern and Western Aspects, the Western Aspect running from around 1300 CE to about 1625 CE and the Eastern Aspect from about 1630 CE to about 1750 CE.
The Western Dismal River Aspect was likely composed of incoming Athapaskans migrating south along the western edge of the plains and eastern foothills of the mountains. They were earlier than the Eastern Aspect people and were more used to life in the highlands. They flowed south until they could flow west into unoccupied lands in southern Colorado and northerneastern New Mexico. They became the Jicarilla Apaches of today.
Others stayed east of the foothills and overran tribes they met along the way. They became the Mescalero and Lipan Apache tribes. Others went south around the Manzano Mountains and then west across th