Archaeologist Steven Lekson. Courtesy photoSARL News:
SANTA FE ― The School for Advanced Research lecture series, Crossing Global Frontiers, continues 6:30–7:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017, at the James A. Little Theater at the New Mexico School for the Deaf.
Archaeologist Steven Lekson asks What Ifs: Santa Fe and Southwestern Archaeology. What if: instead of Santa Fe, Southwestern archaeology centered in Tucson? Or developed out of Ciudad Chihuahua? Or if Southwestern archaeology identified as history, rather than as a laboratory of anthropology?
For over a century, individuals and institutions of Santa Fe played decisive roles in the development of Southwestern archaeology—certainly for better but, in some ways, perhaps for worse.
And for the past three decades, American archaeology has been wrought with tensions separating science and the humanities. Known as an entertaining and insightful presenter, Lekson traces the remarkable influences of Santa Fe’s archaeologists, museums, and world-views on the practice of Southwestern archaeology and on our perceptions of the ancient past. He follows with some “what ifs” that speculate an alternate course of events.
Stephen H. Lekson is curator of archaeology at the Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his PhD from the University of New Mexico and has directed more than forty archaeological projects throughout the US Southwest, mainly in the Mimbres and Four Corners areas. Lekson’s publications include a dozen books, many chapters in edited volumes, and articles in professional journals and popular magazines.
Most recently, he published Chaco Meridian: One Thousand Years of Political and Religious Power in the Ancient Southwest(second edition, 2014) and A History of the Ancient Southwest (SAR Press, 2009). His book-in-progress, The Southwest in the World should appear in 2017. In 2010-11, Lekson was an SAR visiting scholar.
Associated links:
- Dr. Stephen Lekson discusses his latest book, A History of the Ancient Southwest. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=iFbbwrPxfWU
- “Amending the Meridian”, an article in Archaeology by Dr. Lekson, http://archive.archaeology. org/0901/abstracts/insider. html
- “Scientist Tries to Connect Migration Dots of Ancient Southwest”, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/ 06/30/science/30chaco.html
All lectures in the Public Lecture Series, which runs through June 2017, will be held at the James A. Little Theater at the New Mexico School for the Deaf, 1060 Cerrillos Road, in Santa Fe, and are free to SAR members. Nonmembers are $10.00. Please register at www.lectures.sarweb.org.
This lecture is sponsored by La Fonda on the Plaza. The entire lecture series is made possible through the generous support of Adobo Catering, the Betty and Luke Vortman Endowment Fund, Pajarito Scientific Corporation, the Flora Crichton Lecture Fund, Thornburg Investment Management, Shiprock Santa Fe, and SAR members, with additional support provided by Santa Fe Dining Inc.
For more information about the 2016-2017 Public Lecture Series, visit www.lectures.sarweb.org or contact Maureen Ayers (505).954.7245 or ayers@sarsf.org.
