The Journal
Nearly 1,000 years ago, Sunset Crater near present-day Flagstaff erupted, pouring out lava flows for several miles and blanketing more than 800 square miles with ash. The eruption disrupted the lives of the ancient Sinagua people who lived in the area as well as their ancestral Pueblo neighbors in what is today the Four Corners region.
The impact the eruption of Sunset Crater had on the Sinagua and other ancestral Pueblo groups will be the topic of Kenneth Barnett Tankersley’s Four Corners Lecture Series presentation, “Sunset Crater and Its Impact on Ancestral Puebloans,” on Wednesday, Aug. 1 at 7 p.m. at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, 23390 Road K in Cortez.
The event is free and open to the public.
Tankersley is an assistant professor of anthropology and the curator at the Court Archaeological Research Facility at the University of Cincinnati. He specializes in archaeological geology, Quaternary science, catastrophic volcanic events and vertebrate paleontology. He has authored or co-authored many papers on the impact of volcanic events on ancient human cultures.
The Four Corners Lecture Series is an annual speaker series at various Four Corners locations throughout the year. For more information, go to www.facebook.com/4CornersLectureSeries/.