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By Deborah L. Huntley, Preservation Archaeologist, with Katherine Dungan, Research Associate
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A few weekends ago, several Archaeology Southwest staff members had the opportunity to attend the 13th Biennial Southwest Symposium in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This year’s symposium title was “Causation and Explanation: Demography, Movement, and Historical Ecology.” Presenters were asked to explore causal explanations for long-term social change in the American Southwest. The conference was very well attended, and the theme generated many stimulating discussions among the attendees. And, of course, we enjoyed fantastic local food and good weather (although some would have appreciated warmer mornings).
I had the opportunity to participate in the opening thematic session on Saturday, along with Ann Ramenofsky, Cynthia Herhahn, Jeremy Kulisheck, and Ron Towner. We enjoyed a lively question-and-answer session with the audience. I also organized the Sunday session, which was titled “Long-Distance Movement in the American Southwest: The Intersection of Objects, People, and Ideas.” The papers in this session covered a wide range of times and places, and they have given me much food for thought as I synthesize our work in the Upper Gila region.
Archaeology Southwest and our collaborators were well represented in the poster session. Katherine Dungan, Jeff Clark, Rob Jones, and I highlighted our work in Mule Creek and the Upper Gila region (opens as a PDF), and Katherine had several interesting discussions with symposium attendees during the poster session.
Bill Doelle unveiled a poster—written with Archaeology Southwest’s Field Representative, Andy Laurenzi—describing the Salado Preservation Initiative. More on that from Archaeology Southwest this fall.
Two posters represented the Southwest Social Networks Project, a collaborative project headed by the University of Arizona School of Anthropology and Archaeology Southwest. (The posters may be viewed as PDFs here and here.)
Matt Peeples, a postdoctoral Research Associate at Archaeology Southwest and the University of Arizona, and his coauthor, UCLA professor Greg Schachner, presented a thought-provoking poster (opens as a PDF) outlining an innovative approach to seriating southwestern ceramic assemblages using a case study from the Zuni region of New Mexico.
Look for the symposium proceedings to be published by the University Press of Colorado, hopefully by spring 2013. Thanks to the organizers for a wonderful symposium.
Reminder: We’re now accepting applications for the 2012 Preservation Archaeology field school in Mule Creek.