A New York archaeology professor treks to Cortez next week to discuss ancient ruins south of the border in Mexico.
Part of the Four Corners Lecture Series, the Hisatsinom Chapter of the Colorado Archaeology Society welcomes Randall H. McGuire as June’s quest speaker. Held at the Methodist Church on Park Street, the 7 p.m. lecture examines Cerros de Trincheras and War in the Formative Period Trincheras Tradition.
“I have heard Randy speak on a number of occasions, and he is a dynamic and interesting lecturer,” said Kari Schleher of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. “It should be a fun talk.”
McGuire, a distinguished professor of anthropology at Binghamton University in New York, earned his doctoral degree from the University of Arizona in 1982.
A Fulbright Fellow, international scholar and archaeologist, McGuire has explored, mapped, excavated and analyzed Cerros de Trincheras since the 1980s.
Located approximately 180 miles south of Tucson, Ariz., Cerro de Trincheras near Sonora, Mexico, was inhabited from 1300 to 1500. The largest and most well known archaeological site of the trincheras tradition, Cerro de Trincheras was a major pre-Hispanic town and a regional center.
Cerro de Trincheras, which contains more than 900 terraces, covers a large, isolated volcanic hill south of the modern town of Trincheras in the Rio Magdalena drainage.
A Spanish term for entrenchments or fortifications, trincheras – the remains of terraces and walls – are a distinctive type of archaeological site found in the desert basins of the southwest United States and northwest Mexico, typically on a hill or low mountain peak.
Described as an archaeological expert of Northern Mexico, McGuire hopes to demonstrate during his lecture that trincheras were not constructed as defensive structures, but instead were multifunctional.
tbaker@cortezjournal.com