Description
We rely on archaeology to identify and interpret the peoples and cultures that developed in the US southwest in “pre-contact” times before non-Indigenous people arrived and wrote about them in 1539 and later. Archaeologists have divided pre-contact time here into sequential stages, known as the Paleoindian, Archaic, Early Agricultural, Early Ceramic, and Formative periods. The most well-known southwestern archaeological cultures did not arise until the Formative period, and are examined alongside others in this lecture.
Archaeologist Allen Dart has worked in New Mexico and Arizona since 1975. A UNM graduate, he worked for the Museum of New Mexico and the Bureau of Indian Affairs before receiving his master’s degree in Arizona. Dart is the executive director of Tucson’s Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, a nonprofit he founded in 1993. He has received awards and honors from the National Park Service and other organizations for his efforts to share archaeology with the public.