The Zuni Region across the Lost Century: A.D. 1450–1540

Preservation Archaeologist Matt Peeples will speak on March 15, 2014, at the Casa Malpais Museum in Springerville, Arizona, in celebration of Arizona Archaeology and Heritage Awareness Month.

Matt writes, “The period between A.D. 1450 and the arrival of Coronado in 1540 has often been depicted as a ‘lost century’ in the Southwest. During this period, most of the region saw a substantial decline in population, large scale population movements, and rapid changes in the organization of the communities that remained. The Zuni region of west-central New Mexico is one of only a few places in the northern Southwest where large agricultural villages that were first constructed during the late prehistoric period continued to be inhabited through the ‘lost century’ and into the historic period.  In this talk, I will summarize several lines of archaeological and biological evidence to explore the origins, timing, and consequences of immigration into the Zuni region and the establishment of the communities encountered by de Niza and Coronado at contact.”