CU-Boulder anthropology Assistant Professor Stephen Lekson will continue the Fall 2000 Chancellor聮s Community Lecture Series on Wednesday, Nov. 8, with his talk, "Has CU Solved the Mystery of the Anasazi?"
Lekson, also curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, will speak about the extensive role CU-Boulder has played in unraveling mysteries of the ancient Anasazi, or Pueblo people who lived in the Four Corners region for centuries. He will highlight past CU research at Mesa Verde, the Yellowjacket site, the Dolores Project, the Chimney Rock site near Pagosa Springs and the Bluff Great House site in southwest Utah.
"We haven聮t solved the mysteries of the Southwest Pueblo people by any means," said Lekson, who was a National Park Service archaeologist at Chaco Canyon for 10 years before coming to CU-Boulder. "But work by CU archaeologists and students over the decades has played a major role in understanding who these people were and how they lived."
Lekson also will summarize results of a series of yearlong conferences he organized around the Southwest involving scores of anthropologists and American Indians concerning the Chaco culture that dominated the Southwest 1,000 years ago. Sponsored by CU-Boulder and the NPS, the meetings focused on various facets of the Chaco culture, including organization, production and movement of goods, Chacoan society, government, economy, ecology, habitation sites and architecture.
"The study of the Chaco culture is one of the largest research projects ever undertaken in the Southwest," said Lekson, who noted that a compilation of referred scientific papers produced by the conferences would be published in an upcoming book. "We thought it was time to bring together the key people and their knowledge in order to synthesize what we know about the Chaco phenomenon."
He also will talk about his latest research at Pinnacle Ruin, a mysterious site near Truth or Consequences, N.M. Lekson and CU-Boulder graduate students Curtis Nepstad-Thornberry and Brian Yunker surveyed Pinnacle Ruin in June 2000 and found tantalizing evidence that a village-sized group from the Mesa Verde region settled there in the 14th century.
While most of the ancient Four Corners residents moved relatively short distances to places like the Galisteo Basin and to villages like Hopi and Zuni by about 1300, the new findings indicate some migrated much farther south than most archaeologists had previously believed.
Located on Alamosa Creek, Pinnacle Ruin was an ideal place to settle because of its location on a defensible butte, next to permanent spring water and adjacent to arable land and a wealth of big-game animals. Although Pinnacle Ruin and two similar sites relatively close by are located up to 250 miles from Mesa Verde, all three sites exhibit Mesa Verde-type ceramics and architecture, he said.
All of the Chancellor聮s Community Lectures will be at 7 p.m. in the Chapel at The Academy, located at 970 Aurora Ave. in Boulder. Monthly lectures are free and open to the public. The program is co-sponsored by The Academy and the CU-Boulder Office of Community Relations on Wednesday evenings once a month from September through January.
The lecture series continues the community program launched in September 1998 featuring CU-Boulder faculty in talks ranging from arts and humanities to business and the sciences. Parking is available along the streets bordering The Academy including Lincoln, Cascade, Aurora and 10th.
For more information, contact the CU-Boulder Office of Community Relations at (303) 492-8384.