Events Search and Views Navigation
March 2019
Scott Thompson – “Historical-Period Ranching on the Barry M. Goldwater Range, Arizona”
The Barry M. Goldwater Range (BMGR), located in southwestern Arizona, is the nation’s second largest tactical aviation range and has functioned as one of the premier aviation training facilities for the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and the air arm of other military branches for more than 75 years. In 1854, the United States acquired the lands that now comprise the BMGR. Ranching quickly became the dominant non-Native American economic activity. Abandoned ranching sites dating to the late nineteenth and early-to-mid-twentieth…
Find out more »April 2019
Elizabeth Eklund – “Living with the canals: Water, Ecology, and Cultural Memory in the Sierra Madre Foothills”
The storms dump monsoon rains on the Sierra Madres, water percolates down into the aquifer, draining along the rivers of Northwestern Mexico. One of the rivers, Río Sonora, has been used to irrigate cropland for millennia. Precise historical details remain unclear, but around the time of the Entrada (circa 1530’s), Cabeza de Vaca reported an area with “permeant houses and many stores of maize and frijoles” (2003:152). Continuity with this pre-Hispanic past has been supported by the research of geographer…
Find out more »May 2019
Richard and Shirley Flint – “Mendoza’s Aim: To Complete the Columbian Project”
Don Antonio de Mendoza and his forebears had been backing the Columbian Project for generations. It is little wonder, then—even if it is a surprise to the twenty-first century—that Mendoza’s goal for the Coronado expedition was to finally reach Asia by traveling westward from Spain. This talk discusses why most Europeans of the day were sure that was possible and why it looked to be on the brink of accomplishment in the 1530s from Mexico. As a result, the Coronado expedition attracted “a…
Find out more »June 2019
Archaeological Fakes and Frauds in Arizona and Beyond by Dr. Matt Peeples
Depictions of archaeology in popular culture are full of dubious tales of ancient extraterrestrials, lost civilizations, giants, and widespread scientific conspiracy. In this talk, I will explore such fantastic claims focusing in particular on a few popular claims here in our own backyard in Arizona. My goal is not to simply “debunk” these claims (though I will do that too) but to further explore how and why pseudoscientific claims take hold in the popular imagination and what we can do about it. Are such claims just silly fun…
Find out more »July 2019
Aaron Wright – A Renewed Study of a Patayan Walk-In Well on the Ranegras Plain in Far-Western Arizona
The Patayan cultural tradition is one of the least understood archaeological constructs in the Greater Southwest. While recognized nearly 90 years ago as a distinct assemblage of material culture traits centered on the lower Colorado River, research has always been hampered by poor chronological control. Few Patayan archaeological sites have been excavated, and of those even fewer have yielded contexts amenable to absolute dating (i.e., radiocarbon, archaeomagnetic). A dearth of stratified contexts compounds the problem. Archaeologists have long heralded a…
Find out more »August 2019
Pecos Conference – No Lecture
The first Pecos Conference was inspired and organized by A.V. Kidder in 1927 at Pecos Pueblo. Many leaders in the field of archaeology were in attendance. At this first meeting, collaborations led to the first widely-accepted cultural classification system for the Southwest. This classification system and the conference have continued until today. Open to all, the Pecos Conference remains an important and superlative opportunity for students and students of prehistory to meet with professional archaeologists on a one-on-one informal basis…
Find out more »September 2019
Kirk Astroth – Profound and Persistent Beauty: Results of the Petroglyph and Pictograph Recording Project in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming
The Powder River Basin west of Kaycee, Wyoming is rich with history. The lush basin east of the Big Horn Mountains, known now as Hole in the Rock, was home to Indigenous people for centuries who left images on the red sandstone canyon walls and in alcoves. The Basin was also the site of the Chief Dull Knife Battle of 1876 (five months after the Little Bighorn Battle), which demoralized the Cheyenne tribe and in which they sustained heavy losses,…
Find out more »October 2019
Used Book Sale
Twice a year AAHS holds a book sale to support the Arizona State Museum Library. The sale this fall will be held on Friday, October 18th from 11 am until 5 pm and Saturday, October 19th from 10 am to 4 pm. The sale of donated books will be held in the ASM Lobby. While the sale includes many hard to find anthropology and archaeology books there are also other genres including art, fiction, biography, history and general non-fiction. Books…
Find out more »Patrick Lyons – The Davis Ranch Site: A Kayenta Immigrant Enclave in Southeastern Arizona
A recently published book reports the results of Rex Gerald's 1957 excavations, sponsored by the Amerind Foundation, at the Davis Ranch Site, in southeastern Arizona's San Pedro River Valley. In this presentation, I will summarize Gerald's findings as well as the results of recent studies, placing Gerald's work in the context of what is currently known regarding the late thirteenth-century Kayenta diaspora and also the relationship between Kayenta immigrants and the Salado phenomenon. Data presented by Gerald and other contributors…
Find out more »