A unique program featuring historians, authors, artists, poets, archaeologists and photographers will be held at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Feb. 26 to probe the meanings of Native American prehistory to different groups of Americans.
Titled "Chaco, Mesa Verde and the Confrontation with Time," the panel discussion will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Old Main Chapel on campus. Co-sponsored by CU-Boulder聮s Center of the American West, the CU Museum and the National Park Service, the program is free and open to the public.
"One of the main themes will be why places like the ancient Pueblo Indian ruins in the Four Corners region fascinate such a wide swath of the public today," said CU Museum and Field Studies Coordinator Steve Lekson, one of the Southwest聮s premier field archaeologists. Mesa Verde remains one of the top tourist attractions in the world, and the Chaco culture, centered at Chaco Canyon, N.M., dominated a region the size of Ohio during its zenith about 1,000 years ago, he said.
The public event will be the culmination of a two-day scholarly meeting among professionals from various disciplines across the United States. Participants will break into roundtable groups to discuss the meaning and importance of Southwest Pueblo prehistory to personally, ethnically and professionally diverse people.
The scholars will probe such issues as the effect that ancient ruins have on one聮s perspective of time and the varying degrees of emotion experienced by Mesa Verde and Chaco visitors, said Lekson. They also will explore how such visits bring up cross-cultural encounter feelings or emotions of the universality of all humans through time, as well as explore the various views of ruins held by American Indians and archaeologists and how they affect public visitors.
The event was co-organized by Lekson and CU-Boulder history Professor Patricia Limerick, a prolific author perhaps best known for debunking Western history stereotypes in her award-winning book, "The Legacy of Conquest." She also writes frequent essays on Western issues for the New York Times, USA Today and other newspapers, magazines and journals, and chairs the Center of the American West.
Limerick will co-host the public program with Dr. Charles Scoggin, a physician, entrepreneur and skilled amateur archaeologist. Scoggin has visited and explored a number of Native American sites, amassing a large amount of field knowledge as he follows in the footsteps of his father, a well-known archaeologist.
The panel discussion will include CU-Boulder history Professor Vine Deloria Jr., one of the leading American Indian intellectuals of his generation and perhaps the most cited spokesperson on behalf of Indian perspectives.
The panel also will include several other American Indians, including Simon Ortiz, one of the nation聮s leading poets; artist Tessie Narajano from the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico and chair of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Advisory Committee; and anthropology Professor Enrique Salmon of Fort Lewis College in Durango, a distinguished ethnobotanist.
Other panelists include noted photographer Peter Goin of the University of Nevada at Reno, who has had exhibits in more than 50 museums, and Tucson aerial photographer Adriel Heisey, who specializes in photographing ruins and other landscapes from the air. Heisey聮s work was exhibited at the CU Museum in 1999.
Authors on the panel include Leah Dilworth, author of "Imagining Indians in the Southwest" and New York University Visiting Professor Ann Fabian, an expert on American culture and attitudes toward American Indian remains. Boulder resident Bob Greenlee, author of "Life Among the Ancient Ones," also will participate, as will CU-Boulder Professor Emeritus Reg Saner, author of a book about walking through the canyons and cliff dwellings of the Southwest titled "Reaching Keet Seel."
The panel also will include former National Park Service Director Roger Kennedy, author of "Hidden Cities: The Discovery and Loss of Ancient North American Civilization." Other NPS participants include Chaco archaeologist Dabney Ford, Chaco Interpretation Chief Russ Bodnar and Mesa Verde Interpretation Specialist Kathy McKay.
The essays and visual work prepared for and during the conference by participants will be published in book form next year, Lekson said.