Chaco Canyon is extraordinary in many respects, not least in the dense concentration of jewelry found in archaeological contexts dating between the 9th and early 12th centuries CE. The largest and most prominent pueblo in the Canyon is Pueblo Bonito, a 650-room structure with elite burial chambers and material imported from across the Southwestern U.S. and Mesoamerica. Excavations at Pueblo Bonito between 1896 and 1927 resulted in the collection of over 100,000 items of personal adornment fashioned from turquoise, marine shell, jet, and local stone.
Dr. Hannah Mattson has studied Pueblo Bonito’s ancient jewelry assemblage for over a decade. In this lecture, she discusses her research, including how these objects were produced and what their past social meanings may have been.
Hannah Mattson is a Southwestern archaeologist and an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. She specializes in the archaeology of Chaco Canyon and the larger Ancestral Pueblo region, personal adornment and social identity, ceramic technology, and public archaeology. She has authored numerous articles and book chapters on items of adornment from the northern Southwest and is currently editing a volume titled Personal Adornment and the Construction of Identity: A Global Archaeological Perspective, that will be published in 2021.
To register for this virtual lecture go to:
https://unm.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcpceygqjguGd0LnRlOyvKIEOugcciYJv3N