Wednesday, February 14, 2024 at 12:00 noon, free!

OAS Research Associate C. Dean Wilson will be offering a free lunchtime talk entitled An Examination of Ceramics from Deric Nusbaum's 1935 La Plata Valley Survey.

Over the course of the La Plata Highway Project, ceramics collected during Deric Nusbaum’s 1935 survey and recording of 992 archaeological sites in the La Plata Valley were located and examined. These collections provide a fascinating glimpse into the goals and techniques utilized by pioneering archaeologists of the time, while also contributing to a further understanding of the long occupation of this valley by often large Ancestral Pueblo communities.

Information from this analysis was used to supplement the extremely large database accumulated during the La Plata Highway Project and provides insights concerning the nature of continuity and change during a long occupation by groups producing a continual sequence of Northern San Juan tradition pottery.

Data from this study also provided insight into the nature of and influences from other areas as well as how climate influenced changes in settlement patterns at communities occupied in different elevations and settings.

This talk, which will be available online and in-person, will be held in the OAS library at the Center for New Mexico Archaeology. Talks are informal and admission is free. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. This talk begins Wednesday, February 14, 2024, at noon. The lecture will be provided in an online format, either on the Friends of Archaeology Facebook page or the FOA Youtube channel. Look for special announcements regarding this and other talks on the FOA Facebook page or on the New Mexico Office of Archaeological Studies website.

The Center for New Mexico Archaeology (7 Old Cochiti Road) is located off of Caja del Rio Road, across from Challenge New Mexico on the way to the Santa Fe Municipal Golf Course. Take 599 to South Meadows Road, continue through the traffic circle west along the Frontage Road to Caja del Rio Road. CNMA is on the left-hand side of the road and is the large building with white sail-like skylights on the roof.