Previous Lectures
Pecos Conference-No Tucson Lecture
9 August, 2018 at all day
This year’s Pecos Conference will be held in Flagstaff, Arizona. » Read more
Pecos Conference - No Tucson Lecture
9 August, 2018 at all day
This year’s Pecos Conference will be held in Flagstaff, Arizona. » Read more
Holiday Party and Research Slam
18 December, 2017 at 6:00 pm
Come Celebrate Research! Monday, December 18th 6:00 pm Petroglyphs, 228 S. Park Ave in the Lost Barrio Bring a dish to share. The drinks are on us. The AAHS Holiday Party and Research Slam is being revived and will be hosted again at Petroglyphs in the Lost Barrio just south of Broadway on Park Ave. It’s a potluck so bring [...] » Read moreLindsay Montgomery - "Persistence: A Comanche History of 18th Century New Mexico"
20 November, 2017 at 7:30 pm
» Read moreKurt Dongoske - "Zuni Heritage and Cultural Landscape Documentation Through Film: Zuni and the Grand Canyon"
18 September, 2017 at 7:30 pm
» Read more
80th Anniversary Pecos Conference
10 August, 2017 at all day
SANTA FE, N.M.–May 8, 2017–Attendee registration for the 2017 Pecos Conference has opened on the Attendee Registration page on our web site. We know many of you are eager to sign up for this year’s conference, taking place August 10-13, 2017 just outside Santa Fe on Rowe Mesa. Registration for presenters and vendors is not open [...] » Read more
Matthew Guebard - "New Discoveries and Native American Traditional Knowledge at Montezuma Castle National Monument"
17 July, 2017 at 7:30 pm
Researchers prepare to depart Montezuma Castle cliff dwelling, 2016. Photo Credit: Lucas Hoed This presentation will discuss the use [...] » Read more
Saul Hedquist - "A Colorful Past: Turquoise and Social Identity in the Late Prehispanic Western Pueblo Region, A.D. 1275-1400"
19 June, 2017 at 7:30 pm
Mosaic forms: turquoise with red stone and marine shell. Specimens from Homol’ovi I (a), Nuvakwewtaqa/Chavez Pass (b, [from Fewkes 1904:Plate 34]), and Kinishba (c). These and similar items are blatant symbolic references to moisture. Turquoise is synonymous with the U.S. Southwest, occurring naturally in relative abundance and culturally prized for millennia. As color and material, turquoise [...] » Read more
John G Douglass - "Creating Community in Colonial Alta California"
15 May, 2017 at 7:30 pm
Map of the Los Angeles Basin area illustrating the locations of Mission period rancho boundaries and the approximate location of Native Californian villages, based on ethnohistoric and archaeological data. Map created by Stephen Norris, Statistical Research, Inc. The arrival of settlers, soldiers, and missionaries representing the Spanish State to Alta California in 1769 fundamentally transformed Native [...] » Read more
John Carpenter - "Raising Time to the Level of Explication: 13,000 Years of Adaption in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa (SON F:10:3)"
17 April, 2017 at 7:30 pm
Panorama of La Playa Our research at the extraordinary La Playa Site (SON F:10:3) is now entering its 23rd year. This site is located at the Boquillas Valley about 10 kilometers north of Estación Trincheras and some 27 kilometers west of Santa Ana, Sonora. The La Playa site presents an archaeological landscape revealing evidence of more [...] » Read more
Robert Weiner - "Gambling Dice and Speaking Birds: New Approaches to Ritual Power at Chaco Canyon "
20 March, 2017 at 7:30 pm
Chaco Canyon has been the focus of a century’s worth of archaeological research, but fundamental questions remain about the site’s status as the center of the Ancestral Puebloan world in the 11th century. What gave Chaco the power to draw the labor necessary to construct monumental Great Houses and roads within the canyon, and to [...] » Read more
Dale S. Brenneman, Bernard Siquieros and Ronald Geronimo - "O’odham History in Spanish Written Accounts" (lecture to be held in CESL 103)
20 February, 2017 at 7:30 pm
LECTURE TO BE HELD IN CESL 103 Just east of the Arizona State Museum. Members of the O’odham–Pee Posh project’s discussion group visit the mission church in Tubutama, Sonora. The Franciscan structure was completed in 1783, in the O’odham village where the Jesuit Father Eusebio Francisco Kino first established a mission in 1689. (Photo by Bernard [...] » Read more
Matthew C. Pailes -"Archaeology in the Valleys of the Sierra Madre Occidental, Sonora, Mexico"
16 January, 2017 at 7:30 pm
A rock art panel from the Moctezuma Valley, where the discussed research was conducted This presentation will review recent research in eastern Sonora, Mexico. Spanish exploration era chronicles suggested dense populations occupied eastern Sonora in the 1500s. Using these documents, ethnohistorians inferred long distance trade, foreign religious influences, warfare, and abundant agricultural surplus contributed to the [...] » Read more
David R. Wilcox "Frank Hamilton Cushing as a Professional Archaeologist in the 1880s and Anthropology at the 1893 World's Fair"
19 December, 2016 at 7:30 pm
•Beginning in 1983, Curtis M. Hinsley, Jr., and David R. Wilcox set out to edit and publish a seven-volume documentary history of the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Project sponsored by Mary Hemenway of Boston and led by Frank Hamilton Cushing, 1886-1889. •Wilcox’s excavations at an archaeological site in Tempe, AZ, for the ASU Department of Anthropology’s “Spring [...] » Read more
M. Steven Shackley - "The Southwest Archaeological Obsidian Project and Preclassic Hohokam Social Identity"
21 November, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Major Sacaton (Sedentary) Phase Hohokam tool traditions and the obsidian source provenance mix for the traditions. Width of arrows denotes approximate proportions of those sources in the traditions (from Shackley 2005). Illustration by Shearon Vaughn. This decades long research into the complexity of obsidian source provenance in the Southwest, have allowed us to address many of [...] » Read more
Patricia A. Gilman - "Social Contexts of Mimbres and Chaco Macaws"
17 October, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Partial Mimbres Classic Black-on-white bowl with a scarlet macaw, identifiable by the white area around the eye (from the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution). Scarlet macaws were present and contemporary at Mimbres Classic and Chacoan sites from about A.D. 1000 to 1130, and they were the most spectacular item obtained from farther south in [...] » Read more
J. Jefferson Reid - "Thirty Years into Yesterday: A History of Grasshopper Archaeology"
19 September, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Stylized macaw design on interior of a Fourmile Polychrome bowl from Grasshopper Pueblo. Drawing by E. Wesley Jernigan Twenty-five years ago, the University of Arizona Field School at Grasshopper ended 30 years of fieldwork initiated by Raymond H. Thompson, expanded by William A. Longacre, and concluded by me. The research potential will long outlive the directors [...] » Read more
Douglas W. Gann - "Digital Archaeology for the Public: An update on the state of the field in 2016"
18 July, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Doug Gann recording a photogrammetric model of a Kiva at Pecos National Historic Park By July of 2016, it should go without saying that the field of archaeology has witnessed a near revolution in the ways that spatial data and geodetic mapping techniques gave transformed archaeological research. Geographic Information Systems (GIS), LIDAR, and Photogrammetric mapping have [...] » Read more
Matthew Liebmann - "Pueblo People, Franciscan Missions, and the Arrival of the 'Refuse Wind': The Archaeology of Native American Depopulation, Reforestation, and the Dawn of the Anthropocene"
20 June, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Interior of San Jose de los Jemez Mission Church (image courtesy of Theodore Greer Photography) Native American populations were decimated between 1492 and 1900, instigated by the European colonization of the Americas. But debates surrounding the magnitude, tempo, and ecological effects of this decline constitute some of the most contentious issues in American Indian history. [...] » Read more
John Hall - "The Luke Solar Project: Middle and Late Archaic Period Subsistence and Settlement in the Western Phoenix Basin"
16 May, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Overview of an excavated portion of the Luke Solar project area, with the White Tank Mountains in the background In 2009, Luke Air Force Base initiated a plan to build a 107-acre solar-power-array that would provide about 50 percent of the base’s power needs. The location of the solar-power-array on Luke Air Force Base contained several [...] » Read more
Raymond H. Thompson - "Arch & Hist Ancestors"
18 April, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Dr. Raymond Thompson, Director Emeritus of the Arizona State Museum, will present brief biological sketches of our founding fathers. Dr. Raymond Thompson served as the Director of the Arizona State Museum for 34 years, while also a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Arizona. He presided over the modernization of antiquities laws at the state [...] » Read more
Debra Martin - "Hard Times in Dry Lands: Apocalypse in the Ancient Southwest or Business as Usual?"
21 March, 2016 at 7:30 pm
The bioarchaeological record has an abundance of scientific evidence using skeletal indicators of trauma to argue for a long history of internal and external group conflict in the ancient Southwest. However, the findings suggest variability, nuance and unevenness in the type, use and meaning of violence and therefore defy simple generalizations. Documenting human behavior during [...] » Read more
David Abbott - "It’s All About Scale: Polity and Alliance in Prehistoric Central Arizona"
15 February, 2016 at 7:30 pm
The Settlement Pattern Atop Perry Mesa The Pueblo IV period (ca. A.D. 1275-1400) in the American Southwest was characterized by political upheaval and population distributions for defense. In central Arizona, a large-scale confederation, labelled the Verde Confederacy, may have stretched along the middle and lower reaches of the Verde River and over to Perry Mesa. It [...] » Read more
R. Kyle Bocinsky - "Can Pueblo Corn Save African Farms? Employing 1,400 Years of Agricultural Knowledge in Service of the Future"
18 January, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Traditional crops and farming practices are not only nutritionally, economically, and spiritually important to human communities—they are reservoirs of resilience encapsulating generations of traditional agronomic and environmental knowledge. Can that knowledge be used to improve global food security? Using data from the MAÍS project and a state-of-the-art maize growth model, my colleagues and I are [...] » Read moreHoliday Party - 2nd Research Slam
14 December, 2015 at 6:00 pm
The holiday party will be held at Petroglyphs, 228 S Park Ave in the Lost Barrio We had so much fun last year we are doing an encore! As a celebration of AAHS’ Grant and Research Program the holiday party will feature an Archaeology Research Slam. Ten researchers will be chosen to give three minute presentations on [...] » Read more
Deni Seymour - 'The Earliest Apache in Arizona: Evidence and Arguments"
16 November, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Recent research provides evidence of ancestral Apaches in the southern Southwest at least as early as the A.D. 1300s. Much of this evidence comes from chronometric dates obtained from a feature type that comparative ethnographic information (including rarely used land claims documents) indicates were used for storage. These features, called platform caches, provide rare and [...] » Read more
Chuck LaRue and Laurie Webster - "Ancient Woodworking, Animal Use, and Hunting Practices in Southeastern Utah: New Insights from the Study of Early Perishable Collections"
19 October, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Hafted knife with mottled chert blade and wooden handle from Grand Gulch, Utah, collected by Charles McLoyd and Charles Cary Graham in 1890-1891 as part of the Reverend Green Collection. Courtesy of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, catalog number 121.21451. During the 1890s, more than 4000 textiles, baskets, wooden implements, hide and feather artifacts, [...] » Read moreMichelle Hegmon - "The Archaeology of the Human Experience"
21 September, 2015 at 7:30 pm
A Mimbres Style III bowl with designs showing intertwined snakes and fish. From the Ronnie site, in southwestern New Mexico The Archaeology of the Human Experience (AHE) is a new initiative concerned with understanding what it was actually like to live in the past that archaeologists study (Hegmon 2013, 2016). This talk will have three parts. [...] » Read morePecos Conference - No AAHS Lecture
6 August, 2015 at all day
This year’s Pecos Conference will take place in Mancos, Colorado August 6-9th. » Read more
Jonathan Mabry - "Irrigation, Social Changes, and Ecological Knowledge in Early Farming Societies in the Sonoran Desert"
20 July, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Artist’s conception of the Las Capas site, by Michael Hampshire Based on archaeological settlement patterns and cross-cultural comparisons, it may be inferred that the use of canals and irrigated field systems in the middle Santa Cruz Valley of southern Arizona by 1500 B.C. required cooperation among multiple families, and led to territoriality and tethered, recurrent sedentism [...] » Read more
Jesse A. M. Ballenger, Jonathan Mabry et al - "Cochise Culture Re-revisited: 2014-2105 Excavations at Desperation Ranch"
15 June, 2015 at 7:30 pm
AAHS volunteers from Coronado National Forest, Statistical Research, Archaeology Southwest, Westland Resources, and the City of Tucson Historic Preservation Office at Desperation Ranch. Recently completed excavations adjacent to the expected location of the Cave Creek Midden site, last excavated by Gila Pueblo Foundation in 1936, led to the discovery of a thick layer of cobblestones, bones, [...] » Read more
Aaron Wright - "The Ritual Practice of Hohokam Rock Art in the Phoenix Basin"
18 May, 2015 at 7:30 pm
An overview of the Sun Struck Site at the mouth of Pima Canyon, east end of the South Mountains (photo by Al Aprad) The more than 7,000 petroglyphs in the South Mountains, nestled at the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers, are the largest concentration of rock art in the Hohokam core area. And while [...] » Read more
Deni J. Seymour - "The Great Battle of 1698 on the San Pedro River"
20 April, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Piman warriors using a recurved bow drawn by Father Kino on the 1696–1697 “Saeta martyrdom map” Perhaps the greatest historical event to have occurred in the region happened along the San Pedro River in the vicinity of Fairbank on Easter Day in 1698. This was the battle at Santa Cruz de Gaybanipitea when 500 Apache and their [...] » Read more
Todd W. Bostwick - "Life and Death at a Hohokam Ballcourt Village in the Northern Tucson Basin"
16 March, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Close up of clay figurine from Ironwood Village pit structure that dates to the Late Canada del Oro phase. Nearly 25 years ago, William Doelle and Henry Wallace (1991:290) noted that the early Colonial period was poorly documented in the Tucson Basin. Although more data is now available, the Canada del Oro phase still remains one [...] » Read more
Ashley Morton - "Women's Health Demands Protective Cleanliness": Examining Health and Illness in Early 20th Century Tucson
16 February, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Advertisement card for ProtexU “Lazy Dazy” vaginal ointment (© American Medical Association [1928], All rights reserved/Courtesey of AMA Archives) What was it to be ill in the past for women? How did women historically respond to illness or the risk of an illness? Historical archaeologists often find an array of objects related to medical treatment; doctor proscribed [...] » Read more
William K. Hartmann - "Searching for Golden Empires: Epic Cultural Collisions in 16th Century America"
19 January, 2015 at 7:30 pm
The arrival of the Coronado expedition advance party at Cíbola (Zuni, New Mexico) in 1540. Moments later occurred the first skirmish between European troops and urban defenders in what is now the United States. (Painting by January speaker, William K. Hartmann) Meeting will be held in room 5403 of the UMC not DuVal Auditorium Bill Hartmann will [...] » Read more
Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman and J. Homer Thiel - "Recent Work at the Guevavi Mission"
17 November, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Excavations within Feature 18, an area of stained soil, revealed trenches and postholes for mission-period animal pens and fences at the Guevavi Mission. Modern posts have been placed in postholes to show their location The University of Arizona Spring Archaeology Field School has been conducted at the Guevavi Mission in 2013 and 2014, under the direction [...] » Read more
Christian E Downum - "Homes of Stone, Place of Dreams: The Ancient People of Flagstaff"
20 October, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Northern Arizona Sherds. Photo used by permission of Christian Downum. In this presentation I will tell of how ancient hunters first came to the Flagstaff area toward the end of the last Ice Age, then I will describe a much later time when descendants of these hunters began to farm and live in pit house and [...] » Read more
Paul E. Minnis - "What! No Chiles in the Ancient Southwest?"
15 September, 2014 at 7:30 pm
The most important crops that that fed the ancient peoples of the prehispanic Southwest U.S./northwest Mexico (SW/NW) came from Mesoamerica. The three sister–maize, beans, and squash—and less prominent crops moved at different rates from their homeland to the south into the SW/NW. The most important Mesoamerican crops, with one exception (OK, maybe two), that could [...] » Read more
Rebecca Orozco - "La Frontera: A History of the Borderlands in Cochise County"
21 July, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Father Kino’s Map of the Pimera Alta from Bolton Our region has long been the focus of competing cultures: Native American, Spanish, Mexican and United States. Today’s border is just the latest in a series of boundaries that have divided the peoples who claimed the resources of the region. The history of the dividing line is [...] » Read more
James T. Watson - "Can’t We All Just Get Along? Domestic Disputes and Warfare in the Prehistoric Sonoran Desert"
16 June, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Jim Watson in the Field Sibling squabbles. Coworker disagreements. Political sniping. Government protests. Full-scale warfare. The contentious nature of humans is neither new nor modern, nor exclusive to specific parts of the world. Anthropologists all over the world strive to understand our most destructive motivations and behaviors. Numerous studies have documented violence, warfare, and perhaps even [...] » Read more
Benjamin A. Bellorado - "The Ties that Bind: The Social and Religious Context of Building Murals in the Western Mesa Verde Region"
19 May, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Building mural from the Cedar Mesa area showing the image of at least one ornately woven twined yucca sandal and other woven textile design elements incised into the interior plaster of a kiva dating to the early thirteenth century. In the western Mesa Verde region, ancestral Pueblo peoples used textiles as a powerful means of signaling [...] » Read more
Gayle Harrison Hartmann and Peter Boyle "New Perspectives on the Rock Art of Tumamoc Hill"
21 April, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Western archaic petroglyph on Tumamoc Hill – photo by Janine Hernbrode In this talk we focus on the results of a recent survey of the rock art on Tumamoc Hill, Tucson, Arizona. The survey, conducted under the auspices of the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society and the Arizona State Museum, took place over three winter seasons [...] » Read more
Karen Gust Schollmeyer - "Hunting, Farming, and Human Impacts on the Prehistoric Southwestern Environment"
17 March, 2014 at 7:30 pm
A mule deer in the eastern Mimbres area, southwest New Mexico. (Photo by Steve Northup) Humans have always influenced local plants and animals in the environment around their settlements. As settlements become larger and longer-lived, these impacts become more pronounced and can have positive, neutral, or negative consequences for the people who live there. In many [...] » Read more
Barbara Roth - "Households, Community, and Social Power at the Harris Site, Mimbres Valley, New Mexico"
17 February, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Excavations at the Harris Site The Harris Site, located in the north-central portion for the Mimbres River Valley of southwestern New Mexico, is a large Pithouse period (A.D. 500-1000) site that is best known for its role in Emil Haury’s definition of the Mogollon as a distinct Southwestern cultural group. Excavations conducted at the site [...] » Read more
Daniela Triadan - New Perspectives on the Origins of Maya Civilization: Archaeological Investigations at Ceibal, Guatemala
20 January, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Structure A-3 in the South Plaza of Ceibal, Guatemala The question of how and when the Maya came to be has always been one of the most fundamental in Maya research. Who were the ancient Maya? When did they start to establish a society that we would today characterize as prehispanic Maya? What kinds of processes [...] » Read more
Stephen H. Lekson - "Mimbres: Its Causes and Consequences"
16 December, 2013 at 7:30 pm
THIS LECTURE WILL BE HELD 6:30 pm in the Chavez Building Room 110 in conjunction with the Holiday Party and Auction to support AAHS Scholarship and Research Grants. The Chavez Building is a short walk from ASM and we will have people to direct you to the Building from ASM Mimbres Style II Black on white [...] » Read more
J. Jefferson Reid - "Prehistory, Personality, and Place: Emil W. Haury and the Mogollon Controversy"
18 November, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Emil W Haury dressed for field work, 1930’s When Emil Haury defined the ancient Mogollon in the 1930s as a culture distinct from their Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) and Hohokam neighbors, he triggered a major intellectual controversy in the history of Southwestern archaeology. The controversy centered on whether the Mogollon were truly a different culture or merely [...] » Read more
Laurie Webster - "New Research with the Earliest Perishable Collections from Southeastern Utah"
21 October, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Members of the Green Expedition excavating in Grand Gulch, Utah, in 1891. (Credit: Cowboys and Cave Dwellers, 1997, p. 68. Field Museum of Natural History negative number 63329). During the 1890s, local collectors including Richard Wetherill, Charles McLoyd, Charles Cary Graham, Platt Lyman, and Charley Lang excavated thousands of Basketmaker and Pueblo-period artifacts from rock shelters [...] » Read more
David R. Wilcox - "Synergies of Success: Stories of Cooperation between Professional and Avocational Archaeologists in Arizona""
16 September, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Selections from the Joshua Miller Collection (Land of Sunshine 1897, p. 93); when this collection came to ASM in 1917 it was the first large antiquities collection accessioned The history of archaeology is replete with stories about the synergies that have come from relationships between professional and avocational archaeologists whose cooperation repeatedly has produced significant contributions [...] » Read more
Pecos Conference 2013
8 August, 2013 at all day
For more information see the Pecos Conference Website » Read more
William H. Doelle - "Tucson Underground: The Archaeology of a Desert Community"
15 July, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Few of us in Tucson can trace our heritage in this Sonoran Desert region to more than a single generation. That does not mean that we can’t care deeply about Tucson’s four millennia of agrarian history that is now well-documented. So, let’s take a mid-summer break and spend an hour exploring this special place that [...] » Read more
Homer Thiel - "Recent Discoveries at the Hardy Site and Fort Lowell"
17 June, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Archaeologists excavate a Hohokam pit structure at Fort Lowell (photograph by Henry Wallace, 2012) The City of Tucson recently acquired the Adkins property at the southwestern corner of N. Craycroft Road and E. Fort Lowell Road. Used as a steel tank manufacturing location for 70 years, portions of the site were contaminated by oil and metals. [...] » Read more
Janine Hernbrode and Peter Boyle - "Hohokam Petroglyphs at Sutherland Wash: Flower World and Gender Imagery"
20 May, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Prominent solar marker glyph at Sutherland Wash is probably also a flower – photo by Janine Hernbrode A place of special significance to the late Preclassic Hokokam is located at the base of the western slope of the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson. Taken in context with other anthropological information, it appears that Sutherland Wash Rock [...] » Read more
Carolyn O'Bagy Davis - "Goldie Tracy Richmond: Trapper, Trader, Quiltmaker"
15 April, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Goldie Tracy Richmond, 1896-1972, came to the southern Arizona desert in 1927 where she and her husband, Marion Tracy, prospected, ran traplines, and operated trading posts. At 6’4”, and 345 pounds, Goldie was a big woman with an even bigger heart—through her generosity and compassion to everyone who crossed her path, she became known as [...] » Read more
Paul E. Minnis - "The Boring Side of Paquime"
18 March, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Paquime roomblocks with Cerro Montezuma in the background (photo courtesy of the Amerind Foundation) The size and massive architecture of Paquimé (Casas Grandes) in northwestern Chihuahua has impressed visitors for centuries, ever since the first Spanish entradas to the area. During the Medio Period, approximately A.D. 1200-1450, this site was one of the major and most [...] » Read more
Barbara Mills - "From Typology to Topology: Social Networks and the Dynamics of the Late Prehispanic Southwest"
18 February, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Video of lecture Archaeology is replete with evidence of networks and archaeologists regularly use the concept of “social networks” to talk about interactions between households and communities. It is part of archaeological vocabularies, but most use is in a metaphorical rather than formal sense, even though there are many new applications of social network analysis in [...] » Read more
Suzanne K. Fish, Paul R. Fish and Mark Elson - "University Indian Ruin: Changing Views of the Hohokam Late Classic Period in the Tucson Basin"
21 January, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Late Classic period room near University Indian Ruin’s main platform mound. Photograph by Henry Wallace From approximately A.D. 1200 to 1450, and perhaps even later, University Indian Ruin was a prominent Hohokam center with platform mounds. As the only Classic period center with such public buildings in the eastern Tucson Basin, this settlement undoubtedly served as [...] » Read more
Jesse A.M. Ballenger and María N. Zedeño - "It’s Monumental, but It’s Flat: The Stone Architecture of Bison Hunters in Northwestern Montana"
17 December, 2012 at 7:30 pm
This Lecture will be held at ASM in conjuntion with the Holiday Party and Silent Auction. Doors open at 7:00 pm. Overlooking the scene of a bison jump site, Two Medicine River Valley, Montana. Bison bone located below the cliff indicate its use between A.D. 1400-1500. The cliff in the foreground marks the end of multiple [...] » Read more
Joshua D Reuther & Ben Potter - "Upward Sun River site: Climate change, geoarchaeology and human land use in Ice Age Alaska"
19 November, 2012 at 7:30 pm
2011 Excavation at the Upward Sun River Site, interior Alaska – photo by Ben A. Potter The Tanana River Valley region in interior Alaska has one of the longest archaeological records in North America dating back to 14,000 calendar years ago, at the end of the Ice Age. Several multi-component sites including Upward Sun River, Gerstle [...] » Read more
"Chacoan Immigration and Influence in the Middle San Juan" - Paul Reed
15 October, 2012 at 7:30 pm
The identities and origins of the builders and inhabitants of Chacoan outliers have long been the subject of debate, particularly in the Middle San Juan region to the north. Did immigrants from Chaco Canyon establish these outliers as colonies, did local groups emulating Chacoan ideology build these settlements, or did both groups build and co-reside [...] » Read more
Patricia A. Gilman - "What is the Meaning of Mimbres Art"
17 September, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Mimbres Classic Black-on-white bowl from the Osborn site, Luna County, New Mexico (J. W. Fewkes 1923:28, Designs on Prehistoric Pottery from the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol.74, no.6). This image may represent the Mimbres equivalent of the monster Seven Macaw in the form of a bear and the younger Hero Twin who is [...] » Read more
Pecos Conference
9 August, 2012 at all day
Traditionally there is no AAHS lecture in August due to the Pecos Conference. The Pecos Conference will be held at Pecos August 9-12th. » Read more
Arthur Rohn - "The Neglected Stage of Puebloan Culture History"
16 July, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Ewing Site near Yellow Jacket A popular assumption among many in the field of Southwestern archaeology describes a natural increase in community size from Basket Maker III in the Pecos Classification through Pueblo III that had been disrupted by a stage of widely dispersed small hamlets and farmsteads during Pueblo II. On the face of it, [...] » Read more
Hands on Prehistory - Allen Denoyer
18 June, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Allen Denoyer demonstrating flintknapping at Casa Grande Ruins Experimental archaeology provides a wealth of information that helps archaeologists reconstruct the past. Information gained from experimental studies is often crucial for understanding prehistoric technologies, especially those technologies that are no longer practiced by living people. In addition to providing information useful to archaeologists for an academic understanding [...] » Read more
Identity and Social Transformation in the Prehispanic Cibola World - Matthew Peeples
21 May, 2012 at 7:30 pm
St. Johns Polychrome bowl from the Scribe S site in the El Morro Valley, New Mexico. Since the early days of anthropological archaeology in the Southwest, archaeologists have been fundamentally interested in relating rapid changes in settlement and material culture to transformations in cultural identity. In this talk, using data from the Cibola region of the [...] » Read more
Ben A. Nelson - "Power, Distance, and Mesoamerican-US Southwestern Interaction"
16 April, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Ben Nelson “Trade goods” found at impressive distances from their sources in today’s American Southwest and Mexico have inspired archaeologists to think of imperial reach, commercial exploitation, mercantilism, and explosive growth of power centers. Turquoise, copper, macaws, and pseudo-cloisonné ceramics, along with symbols such as butterflies and the horned serpent, have long been seen as evidence [...] » Read more
William Lipe - Before Lake Powell: Memories of Glen Canyon Archaeology
19 March, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Glen Canyon Project Field School, Loper Ruin, mouth of Red Canyon. Summer of 1958 When the Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1963, Lake Powell started to fill, eventually extending more than 180 miles up the Colorado River in Arizona and Utah. Named by John Wesley Powell in 1869, Glen Canyon lay at the heart of [...] » Read more
Evelyn Billo, Robert Mark and Donald E. Weaver, Jr. - "Sears Point Rock Art and Beyond, Synopsis of the 2008-2012 Recording Project"
20 February, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Petroglyph antlers reach for the sky in the Sears Point Archaeological District, Arizona. Utilized for centuries by many cultures, the National Register Sears Point Archaeological District (SPAD) is located along the rich riparian habitat of the Gila River. Currently managed by the Yuma District of the Bureau of Land Management, a large portion of the District [...] » Read more
David Yetman - "The Ópatas. Who they were and what became of them"
16 January, 2012 at 7:30 pm
In 1600 they were the largest, most technologically advanced indigenous group in northwest Mexico, but today, though their descendants presumably live on in Sonora, almost no one claims descent from the Ópatas. The Ópatas seem to have “disappeared” as an ethnic group, their languages forgotten except for the names of the towns, plants, and geography [...] » Read more
Excavations at the Historic Alameda-Stone Cemetery in Downtown Tucson - Roger Anyon
19 December, 2011 at 7:30 pm
NOTE SPEAKER CHANGE! A Cienega-phase (Late Archaic) pit house was discovered in the project area, under the Stone Avenue sidewalk south of Council Street. The pit house extended west under Stone Avenue itself, beyond the western limit of the project area. The rectangular hole visible in the center of the pit house was probably excavated in [...] » Read more
James Snead - "Relic Hunters: Encounters with Antiquity in 19th Century America"
21 November, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Visit to Mesa Verde 1889 When settlers crossed the Appalachians and moved through the Midwest and Southern United States in the early 19th century they encountered the ruins and artifacts left by previous inhabitants at every turn. They thus experienced their new surroundings as complex landscapes already imbued with “history.” This engagement was almost entirely distinct [...] » Read more
Janet Lever-Wood and Laurie Webster - “What’s in the Bag? A New Look at Ancient Bags through Museum Collections and Rock Art”
17 October, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Basketmaker II human figure with bag, Grand Gulch, Utah. Credit: William D. Hyder, “Basketmaker Ceremonial Caves of Grand Gulch, Utah.” In Rock Art and Cultural Process, edited by Solveig Turpin, 2002. Ancient bags are depicted in Southwestern rock art and have been recovered from many archaeological sites in the region. Despite their widespread presence in the [...] » Read more
E. Charles Adams - "Homol’ovi and Beyond"
19 September, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Room Closure at Chevlon Ruin. Photo courtesy of Homol’ovi Research Program, Arizona State Museum Since 1985, E. Charles (Chuck) Adams has directed the Homol’ovi Research Program of the Arizona State Museum excavating five of the seven pueblos in the Homol’ovi Settlement Cluster. These settlements are integral to Hopi oral history and were variously occupied from 1260-1400. [...] » Read more
No Lecture - Pecos Conference
15 August, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Pecos Conference 2011 Click for more information on the conference » Read more
Ronald Towner - "Tree-Rings, Documents, and Oral Histories in Cebolla Creek, NM"
18 July, 2011 at 7:30 pm
An elaborate dugout at the Savage Homestead in Cebolla Creek, El Malpais NCA. The Cebolla Creek area of west-central New Mexico is an isolated area of lava flows, pinyon-juniper forests, and flat valley bottoms that is part of the El Malpais National Conservation Area. Completely depopulated today, in the early 20th century the area was home [...] » Read more
Bruce Anderson - "The Interplay Between Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology in Interpreting Human Skeletal Variability"
20 June, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Our skeletons silently record much of our individual life histories Ceramic figure from Tlatilco, Mexico Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology are fundamentally different in scope yet inextricably linked. While the skeletal analyses performed during routine forensic anthropological casework are nearly always done on unrelated individuals, skeletal analyses performed during bioarchaeological investigations are typically done on related [...] » Read more
Margaret Nelson - "Then and Now: Then and Now: Lessons from Mimbres"
16 May, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Margaret Nelson Archaeological research is inherently interesting, but does it help us think about the present and the future? We argue that archaeological sites are a valuable heritage resource and that archaeological research delves into and improves our understanding of past lives – ways of being and doing. This is true. But can the experiences of [...] » Read more
Linda Gregonis- "Whiptail Ruin: Hunters and Migrants in Thirteenth-Century Tucson"
18 April, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Pottery found on the floor of structure 19A at Whiptail Ruin In the 1960s and 1970s, Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society volunteers, University of Arizona students, and Pima College students excavated Whiptail Ruin, a village in the northeastern Tucson Basin that dates to the mid- to late A.D. 1200s. Analyses of the notes and artifacts from [...] » Read more
Patricia Crown – “Chocolate Consumption, Exchange and Ritual in the American Southwest”
21 March, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Cylinder jars from Room 28 at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, probably used in ritual consumption of chocolate beverages in the late 11th century. Vessels in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History. Photography by Marianne Tyndall. The discovery of cacao residues in ceramics from Chaco Canyon raises questions about how and when [...] » Read more
Catherine Cameron - "The Bluff Great House and the Chaco Phenomenon"
21 February, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Jonathan Till and Vaughn Hadenfeldt expose one of the wide core-and-veneer walls in the east end of the great house. Photo by Ken Abbott, CU Public Relations The Bluff great house site is located on the San Juan River in southeastern Utah. It was the focus of research conducted by the University of Colorado (CU) [...] » Read more
T. J. Ferguson - "Two Views of Zuni Migration: Traditional History and Archaeology"
20 December, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Zuni Pueblo 1983, by Timothy O'Sullivan (USGS) The traditions of the Zuni people derive from the occupation of their homeland for more than a millennium. These traditions are tied to named places in a cultural landscape that provides the Zuni people with the means to symbolize and recall the ancient past. The Zuni landscape incorporates an [...] » Read more
Henry Wallace - "New Clues, New Research & New Photos of the Oldest Art in Western North America"
15 November, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Deeply incised and ground designs in a southeastern Arizona rock shelter marking what may be one of the earliest styles of rock art depiction in North America. Rock art is notoriously difficult to date and some dating techniques used for dating have been proven unreliable leading to considerable confusion in the literature on what is old [...] » Read more
Matt Pailes - "Cerros de Trincheras in the Hohokam World: A Case Study of the Cerro Prieto Site"
18 October, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Matt Pailes at Cerro Prieto In the Tucson Basin the Hohokam early Classic period (ca. AD 1150) is characterized by large-scale population movements and the appearance of specialized site types including platform mound settlements and cerros de trincheras. Platform mounds are common throughout the Hohokam region during the Classic period. Cerros de trincheras are large villages [...] » Read more
Raymond H. Thompson - The Real Dirt of Southwestern Archaeology : Tall Tales from the Good Old Days
20 September, 2010 at 7:30 pm
The history of Southwestern archaeology is generally well known. Our understanding of the life of the prehistoric people of the Southwest is enriched daily. However, much less is known about the archaeologists themselves; their activities; their embarrassments and triumphs; their adventures and misadventures; their somber moments and their silly ones. This presentation of some anecdotes [...] » Read more
Linda Mayro & Roger Anyon - "Preserving the Past for the Benefit of Future Generations: Accomplishments of the Pima County Historic Preservation Bond Program"
19 July, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Canoa Ranch: Rehabilitated blacksmith shop, tack room, and salt storage building. In 1997 and again in 2004, at the ballot box, the voters of Pima County resoundingly voiced their support of County Bonds for historic preservation. Many members of the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society actively supported the historic preservation bond program. Now that the 1997 [...] » Read more
Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh - "Massacre at Camp Grant: forgetting and remembering apache history"
21 June, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Dr. Colwell-Chanthaphonh is Curator of Anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. His research interests include: Native American ethnology and archaeology, heritage management, collaborative methods, social and political uses of history, cultural landscapes, and research ethics. Dr. Colwell-Chanthaphonh received his PhD from Indiana University and his BA from the University of Arizona. Before [...] » Read more
Todd Pitezel - "I Rented a Mule and Found Religion"
17 May, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Todd Pitezel on his trusty mule During the Casas Grandes Medio period (A.D. 1200-1450), the places where most people lived were of the simplest kind of settlement. Hundreds of sites, most being small pueblo-like units less than 900 sq m in size, dot northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, along major and minor valley water courses. Nevertheless, the Medio period [...] » Read more
Will Tsosie - "Ad i i l a, H á d i i l i ł ? !: perspective from a practicing native american archaeologist"
19 April, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Heritage is property that is or can be inherited. The questions are who’s property and why? Property, in this case heritage, is a commodity which is owned, used and controlled. Management of cultural resources is the control of cultural assets? Property, assets and control are the American 21st century capitalistic reality link to heritage. Heritage [...] » Read more
Steve Lekson - "Chimney Rock and Chaco Canyon, Pinnacle and Mesa Verde: Ancestral Pueblo Regional Dynamics"
15 March, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Dr Steve Lekson Recent excavations by the University of Colorado at Chimney Rock near Pagosa Spring, Colorado and at Pinnacle Ruin near Truth-or-Consequences, New Mexico illustrate two different regional dynamics in the Ancestral Pueblo world. Chimney Rock great house, atop a 1000′ tall ridge above the Piedra River, was an “outlier” of Chaco Canyon. Pinnacle [...] » Read moreArchaeological Research Slam . . . Sponsored by A A H S - Holiday Party
30 November, -0001 at 12:00 am
The holiday party will be held at Petroglyphs, 228 S Park Ave in the Lost Barrio We had so much fun last year we are doing an encore! As a celebration of AAHS’ Grant and Research Program the holiday party will feature an Archaeology Research Slam. Ten researchers will be chosen to give three minute presentations on [...] » Read more