A free lecture about a 4,000-year-old bison-processing site in the San Juan Basin will be offered at 7 p.m. June 2 at the Aztec Ruins National Monument.
In the summer of 2013, before construction of a pipeline, archaeological survey crews from the University of New Mexico began to excavate, investigate and inventory a site that initially showed a scatter of 60 chipped-stone artifacts over three-fourths of an acre and a single, large side-notched point.
Archaeologists soon discovered, slightly more than a foot beneath the surface, the preserved remains of a 4,000-year-old bison-processing site with a substantial Late Archaic component.
Archaeologist Robin M. Cordero will give the presentation and interpret the archaeological significance of the discovery, including artifact assemblages, implications for the presence of bison during the time and the possibility that the appearance of the large side-notched points may reflect a movement of bison hunters from the north into the San Juan Basin.
Cordero began his career in cultural resource management in 1997. He has participated in excavations, surveys and analyses in California, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado, and is working as an archaeology projects administrator and a co-principal investigator.
Cordero and Christian Solfisburg of the University of New Mexico Maxwell Museum of Anthropology compiled and published a volume of research that paints a new picture of the terminal Middle Archaic in the San Juan Basin and raises questions about the under-studied period in human history.
The talk will be held at the monument’s visitor center, 725 Ruins Road, Aztec
For more information, call (505) 334-6174 or visit nps.gov/azru.
fstone@durangoherald.com