New
York Times
July
29, 2005
Archaeology
Jamboree
by
GRACE LICHTENSTEIN
WHEN
archaeologists of the American Southwest gather for
their annual meeting, there are no stuffy hotel meeting
rooms or bland college auditoriums. The events are
all under a great big tent at
a different, often spectacularly scenic locale;
this year's Pecos Conference, as it's known, is in
the high desert country of pinyon and juniper trees
near Bandelier
National Monument in north-central New Mexico.
And unlike, say, the Congress of the International
Union of Physiological Sciences, this conference welcomes
- even encourages - amateurs to attend.
You
might call Pecos "the archaeologists' hoedown."
Southwest specialists from all over the world camp
out and present research on what they've been finding
in ruins, rock piles, canyons and mesas from California
to Texas. But attendees also conduct a beer-brewing
contest, dance to country music at a cookout and swap
stories over campfires.
The
several hundred amateurs and pros who gather for this
year's version near Los Alamos Aug. 11 to 14 will
be observing a tradition that began when the Pajarito
Plateau was still just a place for hunting pottery
shards, long before the founding of the
town that gave birth to the atomic bomb. The conference
was first held in 1927 when Alfred
V. Kidder, the leading Southwest archaeologist
of his time, invited a handful of colleagues to join
him at Pecos,
the Ancestral Puebloan ruins he was then investigating
not far from Santa Fe. "Am sitting on a dirt-pile
- hence the pencil," his note read.
It
was a time of great ferment in Southwest archaeology.
A spear point had recently been discovered among bones
of an extinct bison in Folsom,
N.M., suggesting that human history in North America
went much further back than had been believed.
That
1927 meeting, with 45 participants, was the first
regional archaeological conference in the United States,
and to this day Pecos is novel. It has no dues, no
formal membership, no headquarters. Steve Lekson,
curator of anthropology for the University
of Colorado Museum of Natural History, noted that
from the earliest years of Southwest excavations,
"camping was a necessity because there weren't
any other facilities."
Moreover,
novices, lay people and students are welcome to attend.
They can even present papers. Jane Kolber of Bisbee,
Ariz., is a nonacademic who has taught art on the
Navajo Reservation and at every level from elementary
school through college. But before presenting her
first Pecos paper in 1991, she recalled, "I wasn't
quite sure if they'd accept a paper on rock art."
Her concerns turned out to be unwarranted, and Ms.
Kolber has given several Pecos talks over the years
about her observations of petroglyphs and pictographs.
Longtime
Pecos devotees fondly remember evenings of tipsy revelry,
although the official history of the conference by
Richard B Woodbury, himself a distinguished Southwest
archaeologist, insists the term "drunken brawl"
applies only to a few "unofficial evening sessions."
Sometimes,
Pecos papers can be controversial, even incendiary.
The biggest brouhaha erupted over the issue of cannibalism
among Ancestral Puebloans, who were once thought to
be peaceful people, according to David Breternitz,
a retired University of Colorado archaeologist. A
seminar on cannibalism was scheduled at the 1988 conference
but canceled after objections from contemporary Pueblo
tribal leaders.
Most
of the talk at Pecos Conferences, however, has nothing
to do with violence. This year there will be papers
and seminars on subjects ranging from syphilis among
archaic Arizona tribes to the Victorian-era roads
carved out of the wilderness
near Los Alamos for pioneer wagons. The latter
talk will be given by Dorothy Hoard, 72, a retired
Los Alamos National Laboratory chemist.
Despite
the rustic atmosphere, the discussions can be previews
of sophisticated discoveries that may not appear in
printed form for years. "So much is interdisciplinary
- pollen analysis, DNA, remote sensing - it isn't
just going out and digging up a bunch of pottery,"
Mr. Breternitz said. "It gives us a chance to
see more of a complete picture."
The
2006
gathering will be held near the Salmon Ruins in
northwest New Mexico. It will be Mr. Breternitz's
50th Pecos encampment. "I have told my wife when
we are too old to camp at Pecos Conference, we are
too old to attend," he said.
Talking
Rocks
What
2005 Pecos Conference; Overlook Park, White Rock,
N.M.; $30 registration fee; www.swanet.org/2005_pecos_conference.
When
Aug. 11 to 14.
How
to Get There From Santa Fe, take Route 84 north to
Pojoaque, then Route 502 west. Then take Route 4 toward
White Rock-Bandelier for four miles and follow signs
to the Spirio Soccer Field.
Where
to stay Ponderosa Campground at Bandelier National
Monument (no hook-ups). Another campsite will be added.
For hotels, see visit.losalamos.com/lodging/.
