The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at The University of New Mexico will host a celebration of International Archaeology Day starting Thursday, Oct. 19 with a lecture by UNM alumnus Edward A. Jolie and Mowana L. Lomaomvaya from the Arizona State Museum presenting on their research on Burden Basket Ceremonialism and Trajectories of Indigenous Basketry Change in the Northern U.S. Southwest.
International Archaeology Day (IAD) is a celebration of archaeology and its contributions to society. Every October archaeological organizations around the world present archaeological programs and activities for people of all ages and interests. Interactive, hands-on IAD programs provide a chance to uncover the past and experience the thrill of discovery.
Lectures will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the UNM Hibben Center, Room 105. The talk will be followed by a reception at the Maxwell, where visitors can meet the speakers and tour the exhibits of Native North American baskets.
Jolie is of mixed Oglala Lakota (Sioux) and Hodulgee Muscogee (Creek) ancestry, and an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma. He currently serves as associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona and associate curator of Ethnology at the Arizona State Museum. Lomaomvaya is a member of the Hopi Tribe from the village of Hotevilla, Ariz., and currently serves as a research specialist in the Archaeological Records Office at the Arizona State Museum.
The presenters will invoke observations on variability in ancient burden baskets to offer a reconstruction of basketcentered ceremonialism and its transformation over subsequent centuries against the backdrop of wider social and cultural changes in the northern U.S.
On Saturday Oct. 21, the museum will host an Archaeology Family Day. Maxwell, UNM Office of Contract Archeology, and UNM Department of Anthropology faculty, staff, and archaeology students will be on hand to demonstrate archaeological techniques, lead a scavenger hunt, make crafts, and many other activities from 10 a.m. to noon. Visit our web site for more information. Both events are free and open to all.
This year, Homecoming Week overlaps with Archaeology Day and the Maxwell staff looks forward to welcoming UNM alumni and visitors to the museum. A special curators tour of the temporary exhibition Conversing with the Land and We Were Basket Makers Before We Were Pueblo People, featuring more than 170 baskets from the Maxwell Museum collections will be held Tuesday, Oct. 17, from 2:30-4 p.m. The Maxwell Store is holding its Fall sale Oct. 17-22.
Burden baskets, variously used in the transport of foodstuffs, fuel, and other products are, by at least the A.D. 1000s, implicated in significant ceremonialism at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and beyond. Surviving archaeological examples of burden baskets and effigies molded in clay evidence strong symbolic connections to women's productive and reproductive labors and have been taken to suggest the emergence of a prominent woman's sodality.
This event is co-sponsored by the UNM Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies and the UNM Department of Anthropology.
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