“One Hundred Years Plus of Prescott Culture Archaeology” Online Presentation

On Thursday February 16, 2023, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s Third Thursday Food for Thought presentation will feature “One Hundred Years Plus of Prescott Culture Archaeology” presentation by archaeologist Andrew L. Christenson, Ph.D. This free Zoom online program will be held from 7:00 to 8:30 pm (Mountain Standard Time).

The Prescott area in west-central Arizona has gone from a period of first serious notice in the 1920s, to fairly extensive excavation on late sites by J. W. Simmons and the University of Arizona in the late twenties and early thirties, to pretty much disappearing into the 70s when Prescott College was active in the area and Marvin Jeter was working in Copper Basin. At the same time professionals were returning to serious interest in the area, an amateur, Franklin Barnett, moved to Prescott and began excavating local pueblo sites, the largest of which was Fitzmaurice Pueblo, previously worked on by J. W. Simmons and Louis Caywood. Barnett had a close relationship with the Museum of Northern Arizona, whose archaeologists did his ceramic analyses and where parts of his collections remained after his publication of the reports. The collections were transferred to the Smoki Museum, now Museum of Indigenous People, about 10 years ago. This talk will briefly review the history of research on post- 1100 sites in the Prescott area and examine some of the results of reanalysis of selected parts of previous collections from Fitzmaurice. We have been particularly interested in what the remains on room floors tell us about activities at the site in the latter part of its occupation and what the inhabitants may have done to close the village upon leaving it. Andy Christenson has been a professional archaeologist of Arizona for 50 years, with breaks in southern California and Illinois, and is now curator of the Museum of Indigenous People.

                To register for the Zoom meeting go to https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0BTJvr8LTFqX7HF-DDYLhA. For more information contact Old Pueblo at info@oldpueblo.org or 520-798-1201.

Flyer: 20230216 (v1)ThirdThursday_AndrewChristenson_PrescottCulture

Caption: A sampling of Prescott Black-on-gray pottery designs, illustrations courtesy of Andrew Christenson