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Events
Museum exhibits • Tours • Festivals Meetings • Education • Conferences
Events
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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)
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)
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)
Events
March 28–29, Grand Village of the Natchez Indians, Natchez, Miss. The powwow features traditional Native American dancing, food, and crafts. It will be held at the Grand Village, which was the tribe’s main ceremonial center from 1682 to 1729. Now a National Historic Landmark , it features a museum, a reconstructed Natchez Indian house, and three ceremonial mounds. (601) 446-6502, mdah.state.ms.us/hprop/gvni.html
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.—“Wiyohpiata: Lakota Images of the Contested West” explores the meanings of a unique 19th-century “artist’s book” recently discovered among the holdings of Harvard University’s Houghton Library. The book was created to preserve and interpret a ledger filled with Native American drawings that was recovered from the Little Big Horn battlefield immediately following the defeat of General George Armstrong Custer’s cavalry by Cheyenne and Lakota forces in 1876. The ledger, believed to have originally belonged to an Anglo-American gold miner, contains 77 colored drawings by a number of now-anonymous Plains Indian warriors, probably Lakotas. The cultural content of the images is enriched by the presence of historic Lakota and Cheyenne artifacts from the museum’s ethnographic collections. The exhibition opens in concert with the Peabody’s annual Weekend of the Americas (April 3-4), which includes lectures, tours, and conversations organized around the theme “Visualizing Power: Plains Pictographic Arts.” (617) 496-1027, www.peabody.harvard.edu (Opens April 3) n CONFERENCES, LECTURES & FESTIVALS Arkansas Archeology month Throughout the month of March at locations across the state. Join the annual celebration commemorating Arkansas’s cultural heritage as revealed through the archaeology of both prehistoric and historic eras. Exhibits, lectures, demonstrations, tours, open houses, workshops, and other activities will be organized around this year’s theme “Planting the Seed.” (479) 5753556, www.arkarch.org
Society For California Archaeology Annual meeting March 12–15, Doubletree Hotel, Modesto, Calif. The conference features papers, forums, workshops, and social events. www.scahome.org
Arizona Archaeology Expo March 14–15, Pueblo Grande Museum, Phoenix, Ariz. The museum will host the 2009 Arizona Archaeology Expo, part of the 26th annual Arizona Archaeology and Heritage Awareness Month sponsored by Arizona State Parks and Historic Preservation office. Learn why it’s important to preserve historic and archaeological sites. Discover what archaeologists, historians, tribal communities, and cultural centers do to preserve, understand, and interpret Arizona’s past. The event will feature archaeological hands-on activities, craft and ancient technology demonstrations, tours, and lectures. The weekend kicks off month-long archaeological festivities to be held throughout Arizona. (602) 542-4174, www.pr.state.az.us Southwest Seminars “Ancient Sites and Ancient Stories” 2009 Lecture Series Mondays at 6 p.m., March 16–June 1, Hotel Santa Fe, Santa Fe, N.M. Archaeologists, tribal members, historians, and other researchers present lectures to benefit The Archaeological Conservancy. Admission is $10/lecture. For a schedule of speakers, contact Connie Eichstaedt at (505) 466-2775, southwestseminar@aol.com, or visit the Web site www.southwestseminars.org
39th Annual meeting of the middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference March 19–22, Clarion Resort Fountainbleu Hotel, Ocean City, Md. The three-day conference focuses on the latest finds and research from the middle Atlantic region. The conference features presentations, discussion groups, workshops, and other events. Doug Scott, who has pioneered battlefield archaeology research, is this year’s keynote speaker. Contact program chair Liz Crowell at elizabeth. crowell@fairfaxcounty.gov, or visit the Web site www.maacmidatlanticarchaeology.org
74th Annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology April 22–26, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, Atlanta, Ga. A wide variety of papers, posters, forums, symposia, workshops, and excursions are slated for this year’s meeting, as well as roundtable luncheons and evening events. (202) 789-8200, www.saa.org
