TAS Brown Bag Presentation - July 2, 12 Noon

Dr. Kit Nelson, Field Director at SMU-Taos, is once again conducting excavations at Pot Creek adjacent to Fort Burgwin. This is the largest prehistoric adobe pueblo north of Santa Fe. As they close the fieldwork season, she will update us on recent findings.

T'aitdna or Pot Creek Pueblo has long been recognized as an important center for population aggregation. This, along with being acknowledged as an ancestral site to both the Taos and Picuris Puebloan groups, highlights the importance of this site in understanding this period of social restructuring in the northern extent of the Puebloan Southwest and in the development of later Puebloan communities. The site, with a July 2peak occupancy from approximately 1250 to 1350 AD, is composed of a set of roomblocks, including approximately 400 ground floor rooms, surrounding plazas. The inhabitants of the site focused on an agriculture subsistence primarily of corn, beans, and squash, and survey of the area has revealed extensive evidence of agricultural intensification. Inhabitants also participated in trade, stone tool and pottery production, and hunting resulting in a myriad of interesting and informative archaeological remains.

Archaeologist Kit Nelson has more than 20 years of experience and has carried out archaeological research in Egypt, Peru and New Mexico. Her field specialty is the production, use and exchange of pottery by ancient peoples. Currently field director of the SMU-In Taos field school, this summer Nelson continues a tradition that has been taking place for over 50 years, excavations at Pot Creek Pueblo.