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TELLURIDE UNEARTHED LECTURE SERIES 2009
The Ancient Ones Revealed
DECEMBER 1:
"Life is Movement: Pueblo Indians of the Mesa Verde Region." Dr. Mark Varien
6-8p.m. at the Telluride Historical Museum.
DECEMBER 3:
"The Telluride Blanket in Context: An Overview of Prehistoric Weaving in the Southwest." Dr. Laurie Webster
6-8p.m. at the Telluride Historical Museum.
DECEMBER 8:
"Archaeology, Oral Tradition, and the Mesa Verde Migration." Dr. Scott Ortman
6-8p.m. at the Telluride Historical Museum.
BIOS:
Dr. Mark D. Varien currently serves as the vice president of programs at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colorado. Crow Canyon is an internationally renowned institute whose mission is to increase knowledge of the human experience through archaeological research, education programs, and collaboration with American Indians. As vice president of programs, Mark integrates the Center's initiatives in each of the mission areas. Mark received his B. A. in Archaeological Studies (1976) and his M. A. in Anthropology (1984) from the University of Texas at Austin, and he was awarded a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Arizona State University (1997).
Mark has conducted archaeology throughout the western United States, in New Zealand and Australia, and in Central America. His work in the Mesa Verde region of the southwestern United States began in 1979 and continues to the present. He joined the staff at Crow Canyon in 1987, where he served as a research archaeologist (1987-1997) and director of research (1997-2007) before becoming the vice president of programs. Mark’s Ph.D. dissertation on Mesa Verde region settlement patterns was awarded the Society of American Archaeology’s 1998 Best Dissertation Award, and a revised version was published as a book, Sedentism and Mobility in a Social Landscape (1999, University of Arizona Press). His recent research publications include two volumes in which he was the editor and an author: Seeking the Center Place: Archaeology and Ancient Communities in the Mesa Verde Region (2002, University of Utah Press) and The Social Construction of Communities: Agency, Structure, and Identity in the Prehispanic Southwest (2008, AltaMira Press). He has also published articles the popular media, including Scientific American and American Scientist, and in many scientific, peer-reviewed journals, including American Antiquity, Kiva, Ancient Mesoamerica, and World Archaeology.
Mark’s research interests include the organization of ancient households and communities, migration studies, patterns of sedentism and mobility, the formation of cultural landscapes, human impact on the environment, social theory, archaeology and public education, and American Indian involvement in archaeology.
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Dr. Laurie Webster is anthropologist and textile consultant in Mancos, Colorado. Her research focuses on changes in Southwestern weaving before and after European contact. She is a visiting scholar in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arizona and a Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History and Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.
Her publications include: Beyond Cloth and Cordage: Archaeological Textile Research in the Americas and Collecting the Weaver’s Art: The William Claflin Collection of Southwestern Textiles.
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Dr. Scott Ortman, director of research and education, began his Crow Canyon career in 1993 as a research intern, and worked for the center as a field assistant, material culture specialist, database manager, and laboratory director before being named research director in 2007. He has published numerous papers in scholarly books and journals, and several book-length reports on the material culture of ancestral Pueblo sites. Scott completed his doctoral dissertation at Arizona State University in 2009. This work examines the biological, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds of contemporary Pueblo Indian peoples of northern New Mexico, and develops a new theory concerning the formation of these groups in the 13th century A.D. Scott's work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies. His research interests include migration studies, archaeological method and theory, and the integration of archaeology with historical linguistics and physical anthropology.
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