Third Thursday Food for Thought – “University Indian Ruin: A Classic Period Center in the Eastern Tucson Basin”

Photo of partly excavated Hohokam horno (earth oven) with heating stones, at University Indian Ruin, courtesy of Paul and Suzanne Fish.

On Thursday, October 17, 2019 from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m., Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s “Third Thursday Food for Thought” dinner will feature “University Indian Ruin: A Classic Period Center in the Eastern Tucson Basin” free presentation by Professors Suzanne K. Fish and Paul R. Fish, at a Tucson-area restaurant to be announced.

University Indian Ruin, one of the most prominent Hohokam platform-mound community centers between A.D. 1200 and 1450, is located in Tucson’s Indian Ridge Estates neighborhood about seven miles from downtown Tucson. In 1930, an archaeology student donated a 13-acre portion of this archaeological site to the University of Arizona’s Department of Archaeology for student training. Eminent archaeologists Byron Cummings, Emil Haury, and Julian Hayden conducted extensive excavations there throughout the 1930s, however, only Hayden’s 1957 investigations in the vicinity of the platform mound have been comprehensively reported. The University of Arizona School of Anthropology Archaeological Field School resumed fieldwork at the site in 2010, conducting controlled surface artifact collections over the 13-acre archaeological preserve and excavating some of the site’s residential architecture. In our October program, guest speakers Paul and Suzanne Fish will discuss the recent investigations, and their insights into the changing regional interaction of the Hohokam Classic period evidenced by the site’s differential acquisition of polychrome pottery and other resources from far away, including obsidian from distant quarries, exotic cherts, and pottery of Zuni and Sonoran origin.
Reservations must be requested AND CONFIRMED before 5 p.m. on the Wednesday before the program date: info@oldpueblo.org or 520-798-1201. PLEASE WAIT TO HEAR FROM OLD PUEBLO WHETHER YOUR RESERVATION HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BEFORE ATTENDING because the Fire Code limits how many guests we can have in the restaurant meeting room. Guests may select and purchase their own dinners from the restaurant’s menu. There is no entry fee but donations will be requested to benefit Old Pueblo’s educational efforts.
        IF YOU WOULD LIKE US TO EMAIL YOU A FLYER with color photos about the above-listed activity send an email to info@oldpueblo.org with “Send October 17 Third Thursday dinner flyer” in your email subject line.