Two Upcoming Lectures on Gila River Archaeology

NEXT MEETING: Wednesday, May 21, 2025, CANCELLED NOTE THE 5:00 PM START TIME at the WNMU Museum: This special monthly GCAS meeting is the GCAS's annual fundraiser for the WNMU Museum, with which we are so closely allied. Dr. Patricia (Pat) Gilman will be our honored presenter explaining, What Are Tropical Macaws Doing in Mimbres Sites? Watch this space for the date and topic of our next meeting.

NEXT FIELD TRIP: Sunday, June 1, 2025. The GCAS’s next field trip – WEATHER PERMITTING - will visit the Twin Pines site in the upper Mimbres Valley where we will have the opportunity to see directing archaeologist Fumi Arakawa and his crew’s work. This is Gila National Forest land with Mimbres habitations built on top of pithouses and a great kiva. Some petroglyphs are nearby. Access is slow going along rocky roads but high-clearance or 4WD vehicles are not required. However, the trip to Twin Pines takes about 2.5-3 hours from Silver City driving up the Mimbres Valley and into the west side of the Black Range; or about 2.5 hours driving from Truth or Consequences through the east side of the Black Range on an easier road. Overnight camping (boondocking, no amenities) may be available near the Beaverhead Work Center. GCAS members will meet at the Beaverhead Work Center on NM Hwy 59 at 11:00 AM on June 1. To protect this sensitive site, interested GCAS members should contact Marianne at [email protected] for more specific directions.

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Two Upcoming Lectures on Gila River Archaeology

09/12/2021

If you're curious about archaeological sites and research along the Gila River, there are two upcoming online lectures sure to suit you. Get your calendar ready for:

Thursday September 16, 2021, 7 to 8:30 p.m. ARIZONA/Mountain Standard Time (same as Pacific Daylight Time), free online via Zoom: it's Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s “Third Thursday Food for Thought” dinnertime program featuring “The People behind the Petroglyphs: The Cultural Landscape of the Lower Gila River” by anthropologist Dr. Aaron M. Wright.

Aaron Wright at a petroglyphs site in the
lower Gila River valley, photo by Paul Vanderveen

The lower Gila River in southwestern Arizona is renowned for the sheer abundance and uniqueness of the petroglyphs adorning the cliffs and buttes lining it. Places such as the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site and Sears Point, and a growing campaign to establish a national monument or conservation area attest to the richness, value, and significance of this cultural landscape. Lesser known, though, are the Indigenous communities responsible for populating the landscape with such a stunning array of images. Hohokam and Patayan cultural traditions are often mentioned, but the relationship between them and each’s role in constructing the cultural landscape we see today has long puzzled researchers. Based on his four years of directing intensive archaeological survey, and analyzing over 30,000 petroglyphs in the lower Gila Valley, Aaron Wright will highlight some of what this work has revealed. He will pay particular attention to relating the region’s petroglyphs to their nearby archaeological habitation sites in an effort to better understand the people behind it all. Dr. Wright is a Preservation Anthropologist with Archaeology Southwest, Tucson. To register go to https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bJEZgWMbTlydBwV_lCeXqQ. For more information contact Old Pueblo at [email protected] or 520-798-1201.

The following month, on October 18, 2021, 7-8:30 p.m. ARIZONA/Mountain Standard Time: there is another free online presentation of “Eastern Pueblo Immigrants on the Middle Gila River” by archaeologist Chris Loendorf sponsored by Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society (AAHS), Tucson. Description coming, but for details as they develop visit www.az-arch-and-hist.org.

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Posted at 06:00 AM in Archaeology, Current Affairs, Petroglyphs, Puebloan Culture, US Southwest | Permalink | Comments (0)

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