Third Thursday Food for Thought presents “Inhabitants of an Archaeological and International ‘Frontier’: The Precolonial History of the Santa Cruz Valley and the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands”
Join Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s “Third Thursday Food for Thought” online presentation on Thursday, December 18, 2025, featuring “Inhabitants of an Archaeological and International ‘Frontier’: The Precolonial History of the Santa Cruz Valley and the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands” by archaeologist Hunter M. Claypatch, Ph.D. This free program via online Zoom will be held from 7:00 to 8:30 pm ARIZONA/Mountain Standard Time.
Southern Arizona’s Santa Cruz River valley was one of the most important regions in the precolonial Southwest United States and Northwest Mexico. In the arid Sonoran Desert, this nearly 300-kilometer river provided an oasis for early hunter-gatherers and later sedentary populations. While the northern portion of the Santa Cruz cross-cuts present-day Tucson and has been subject to considerable archaeological research, the majority of the river’s southern portion has been little-studied. In this presentation, Dr. Hunter Claypatch highlights the rich cultural history of the river’s southern portion, or Upper/Middle Santa Cruz. This portion of the river crosses the U.S.-Mexico border, has evidence for material culture that spans several thousand years, and served as a “contact zone” for precolonial Hohokam and Trincheras populations.
Using excavated ceramics, Dr. Claypatch gives special attention to the region’s occupation between 700 and 1300 CE. During this time local inhabitants were dynamically shaped by regional cultural interactions but also created their own unique cultural florescence and forms of expression.
Dr. Hunter Claypatch is a ceramicist who has worked extensively with precolonial pottery on both sides of the U.S. and Mexico international border. He specializes in the Trincheras tradition of northern Sonora and the precolonial inhabitants of present-day Santa Cruz County, Arizona.
To register for the Zoom webinar go to https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0aPpBP5mQfOBSad66Tu03Q. For more information contact Old Pueblo at info@oldpueblo.org or 520-798-1201.
Flyer: 20251218(v1)ThirdThursday_HunterClaypatch_SantaCruzValley
Caption: San Martin Purple-on-brown jar, Sonoita Street site (Nogales) and Nogales Polychrome bowl sherds (Paloparado site), photos courtesy of Hunter Claypatch