Date: Tuesday, March 10th, 7PM
Subject: Prodigy, Rebel, or Stepchild? Salmon, Aztec, and the Middle San Juan Region in the Chacoan and Post-Chacoan Periods.
Speaker: Paul F. Reed, Preservation Archaeologist with the Center for Desert Archaeology, Tuscon, AZ
Over the last seven years, research by the Center for Desert Archaeology and its primary partners (Salmon Ruins and Aztec Ruins) has expanded and changed our view of Salmon, Aztec, and other late Puebloan communities in the Middle San Juan region. One of the primary research outcomes relates to the region’s connections to Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. Strong connections to Chaco in the late 11th and early 12th centuries are clear in the Salmon and Aztec data, whereas the presumed linkage to Mesa Verde is much more tenuous. Following the trend apparent across much of the Pueblo Southwest, sites in the Middle San Juan region were much more locally focused during the Pueblo III period (1150-1300). In addition, research reveals that the the three separate river valleys (Animas, La Plata, and San Juan) comprising the Middle San Juan landscape have unique settlement histories and local adaptations of the ancient Puebloan lifestyle.
Join other TAS members and our speaker for dinner prior to the meeting at Graham's Grille, at 5:00 PM. Please RSVP to Dorothy Wells if you're able to join us for dinner - dorothy_wells@mac.com or 751-3265.
Paul F. Reed is a Preservation Archaeologist with the Tucson-based Center for Desert Archaeology, currently working as the Chacoan Scholar at Salmon Ruins, New Mexico, employed in this position for the last seven years. He recently completed work as editor (and author of several chapters) on Chaco's Northern Prodigies: Salmon, Aztec, and the Ascendancy of the Middle San Juan Region After AD 1100, published by the University of Utah Press in August 2008. Reed was editor (and author of multiple chapters) of the three-volume, comprehensive report entitled Thirty-Five Years of Archaeological Research at Salmon Ruins, New Mexico published in 2006 by the Center and the Salmon Ruins Museum.
Together with a group of research partners, Reed is currently conducting National Science Foundation-sponsored research regarding the late eleventh-century Chacoan presence in the Middle San Juan region. The basic question to be addressed: did Chaco Canyon residents migrate to establish homes at sites such as Salmon and Aztec or are the Chacoan traits (architecture, ceramics, stone tools, perishable items) from these sites the result of emulation of Chacoan culture by local residents? Is there evidence for bothprocesses?
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