On February 5, 2022, at 11:30 AM (Arizona/Mountain Standard Time), the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society will present a very special virtual field trip of the Mattocks Site located in Mimbres, New Mexico, at the Mimbres Culture Heritage Site. This Zoom presentation is free and open to the public but one must pre-register by visiting this page for more info and to follow the link there.

The GCAS's very own Marilyn Markel and Professor Emerita Pat Gilman, the supervising archaeologist for the 1970s Mattocks Site excavation, will lead the virtual tour through the site itself and the adjacent museum, while discussing the site's history and the future opportunities it offers for local educational programs and archaeological research facilities.

Register now, and we will see you there!

/s/ webmaster

Our friends at Archaeology Southwest continue with their lineup of FREE online Zoom presentations for their Avian Archaeology season. Set some dates and register soon for one or more of the following:

February 1, 2022, 6:00PM MST: “The Importance of Birds in Chaco Canyon” presented by Katelyn Bishop (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). More info and registration here.

On February 5, 2022, at 11:30 AM (Arizona/Mountain Standard Time), the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society will present a very special virtual field trip of the Mattocks Site located in Mimbres, New Mexico, at the Mimbres Culture Heritage Site. This Zoom presentation is free and open to the public but one must pre-register by visiting this page for more info and to follow the link there.

The GCAS's very own Marilyn Markel and Professor Emerita Pat Gilman, the supervising archaeologist for the 1970s Mattocks Site excavation, will lead the virtual tour through the site itself and the adjacent museum, while discussing the site's history and the future opportunities it offers for local educational programs and archaeological research facilities.

Register early, and we will see you there!

/s/ webmaster

Wednesday, January 19, 2022, 7:00 PM via Zoom: GCAS general meeting features speaker David Greenwald of the nonprofit Jornada Research Institute. Dave will present Archaeoastronomy of the Great Kivas in Tularosa Canyon and describe how his and John Groh's recent studies - most comprehensively at Creekside Village but also at the Great, Great Kiva Site and the Twin Kivas Site - show that great kivas in Tularosa Canyon were used as celestial observatories tied to landmarks and horizon features to monitor the annual cycle of the sun, lunar cycles, and possibly cycles of other celestial objects.

David Greenwald has been an archaeologist for over 45 years. He has spent most of his career conducting cultural resource management projects in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and West Texas. Beginning his career at the Museum at Texas Tech University, he later joined the Archaeology Department at Arizona State University to work on various Hohokam sites in the Phoenix Basin. For several years during the 1980s he worked on Anasazi, Mogollon and Hohokam excavation projects while at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff and continuing his graduate work at Northern Arizona University. Dave served for three years on the Dolores Archaeological Program for the University of Colorado in the Mesa Verde area on what became the largest archaeological excavation project in the United States. In 2001 he and his wife, Dawn, started Four Corners Research, a consulting firm headquartered in Tularosa, New Mexico. Living along the Rio Tularosa, Dave's interest in the area's archaeological richness led to his founding of the Jornada Research Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to ongoing research of our cultural and natural resources while engaging the public to appreciate the significance of archaeological sites. Dave serves as the President of the Jornada Research Institute and Director of the Rio Tularosa Research Program.

Look for the Zoom link in your email a few days before the Zoom meeting, then join us online at about 6:45 PM to get settled. Dave will begin his talk at 7:00 PM sharp. We'll see you there!

/s/ webmaster

Ron Barber, creator of the Stone Calendar Project, has been studying rock art sites throughout the Southwest and Northern Mexico identifying glyphs that mark specific times of the year using unique light and shadow interactions.  He has some survey predictions for glyphs along the Gila Narrows and other southern sites and is looking for volunteers to help in further research.

Anyone who is interested in spending time in the field recording/filming calendar sun light interactions in the region, please contact Ron directly at barbers6@aol.com . Here's more of Ron's background:

News in DNA research does not have to directly relate to our Mimbres-Mogollon region to be featured on this here blog. Click here to read a recent article of some fascinating DNA research into how - and how far back in time - dogs became domesticated and migrated hither and yon with their human companions. Some of the researchers' conclusions surprised even them. And there are sure to be more surprises to come.

What did we humans ever do to deserve dogs?

/s/ webmaster

Our friends at Archaeology Southwest continue with their lineup of FREE online Zoom presentations for their Avian Archaeology season. Set some dates and register soon for one or more of the following:

January 4, 2022, 6:00PM MST: “Ducks, Power, and the San Juan Basketmakers” featuring Polly Schaafsma (Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology). More info and registration here.

The GCAS's own Thatcher Rogers has shared with us a link to his recently published article in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology that describes the latest stage of his ongoing archaeological research into the connections between the Mimbres and Casas Grandes cultures. Thatcher wrote that the GCAS's Nancy Coinman Grant Award that he received in 2019 helped him collect some of the data and images he used in this article. We are thrilled that our group could contribute to research like Thatcher's.

Thatcher continues,

My paper is titled: Ancestral relations and late prehispanic dynamics between the Mimbres and Casas Grandes cultures of the American Southwest/Mexican Northwest region

Archaeology Southwest's last lecture of the season discussing the significance of turkeys in the ancient US Southwest happens soon, so set the date and enjoy learning all about turkey feather blankets:

Wednesday, November 17, 2021, 7:00 PM via Zoom: GCAS general meeting features Christopher Adams, our good friend and the East Zone Archaeologist for the Black Range District of the Gila National Forest, who will present "The 1885 Apache Fight on Trujillo Creek, Southern New Mexico." Chris will discuss the archaeological work he has conducted on an 1885 Apache fight located on the Gila National Forest along Trujillo Creek, approximately seven miles southeast of Kingston, NM. If you have attended any of Chris's previous presentations, you know to expect an engaging historical tale that Chris brings alive with illustrations and photos of his own research and field investigations.