Museum exhibits • Tours • Festivals Meetings • Education • Conferences
frank H. mcclung museum
n NEW EXHIBITS Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park Phoenix, Ariz.—The new exhibit “Pieces of the Puzzle: New Perspectives on the Hohokam” focuses on the latest archaeological techniques that offer new perspectives on the Hohokam and how their culture changed in the 15th century. The exhibit explores methods for dating and analyzing existing archaeological material, showcases how geographical information systems help determine population growth and decline, and presents new viewpoints on just what happened to this ancient culture prior to European settlement. (602) 495-0901, www.pueblogrande. com (New long-term exhibit)
Schingoethe Center for Native American Cultures Aurora University, Aurora, Ill.—The center’s award-winning display “Native Peoples of Illinois: There’s No Place Like Home” provides detailed historical information on the early inhabitants of what is now the state of Illinois. A recent expansion of the exhibit includes displays devoted to understanding the
lifeways of the Eastern Woodland tribes that lived in the area between 800 b.c. and a.d. 800. A full-scale wigwam and campsite help bring earlier times to life. (630) 892-6431, www.aurora.edu/ museum (Newly expanded permanent exhibit)
Bureau of Land Management Anasazi Heritage Center Dolores, Colo.—The new exhibit “The Old Spanish Trail:A Conduit for Change” traces the history of one of the Southwest’s earliest and most important historic trade routes, which ran from northern New Mexico to the Pacific Coast and was based on an ancient network of Native American paths. The Old Spanish Trail was the first successful Euro-American effort to connect the Mexican frontier provinces of New Mexico and California. In 2002 it became a National Historic Trail.Through historic Spanish and Mexican artifacts, maps, and images, the exhibition illuminates the dramatic story of this 19th-century trail that ran 1,200 miles through high mountains, arid desert, and deep canyons. (970) 882-5600, www.co.blm. gov/ahc (Through October 31)
university of pennsylvania museum of archaeology and anthropology
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Philadelphia, Pa.—The museum’s worldrenowned collection of brilliantly painted Chamá polychromes are on display in the new exhibit “Painted Metaphors: Pottery and Politics of the Ancient Maya.” The exhibit opens a window into the lives of the ordinary Maya who lived along Guatemala’s Chixoy River 1,300 years ago. More than 200 ancient objects, including figurines, jade carvings, musical instruments, ritual objects, weaving implements, cooking pots, and projectile points provide a glimpse of how vibrant their lives were. (215) 898-4000, www.museum.upenn.edu (Opens April 5)
american archaeology
Events
Frank H. McClung Museum University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn.—“River of Gold: Precolumbian Treasures from Sitio Conte: An Exhibition of Panamanian Gold, Circa a.d. 700 to 1100” features pre-Columbian gold from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’s excavations at an ancient cemetery in central Panama. The exhibit presents gold from the site of Sitio Conte in its unique archaeological and cultural context, and features ethnohistorical information, excavation drawings, and videotaped segments from original 1940 color film footage of the excavations. More than 150 stunning gold objects are on display, including hammered repousse plaques, nose ornaments, gold-sheathed ear rods, pendants, bells, bangles, and beads. (865) 974-2144, http://mcclungmuseum. utk.edu (Through May 3)
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