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The museum has long sponsored archaeological fieldwork in the Southwest
and elsewhere. Over 50 years of research in and around Chaco Canyon, much
of it in collaboration with the National Park Service, represents the
strongest component of this work. In addition major field programs have
focused on the European Palaeolithic , the Arctic and sub-Saharan Africa.
Collectively, these projects have produced one of the largest and best
documented, collections-based research resources in existence.
The Maxwell Center for Anthropological Research (MCAR) is a Category I Research Center established in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Center brings together those divisions and programs of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology that are currently engaged in field and laboratory research in the various branches of Anthropology
In addition the Maxwell Museum's Office of Contract Archaeology (OCA) conducts field projects throughout
New Mexico as part of its funded activities.
The following highlights individual archeological research currently underway by Museum staff:
E. James Dixon, Director and Professor of Anthropology
As a result of climate change, rare archeological materials are melting from ancient glaciers and ice patches worldwide. Some of the spectacular organic artifacts that have been found include prehistoric bows and arrows, spears, hunting tools, baskets, clothing, and even human remains. These unusual discoveries have been preserved and frozen in ice for thousands of years and provide an unprecedented glimpse into the lives of ancient people and have captured public attention around the world. This is the third year of a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs to identify ice patches most likely to contain and preserve artifacts melting from the ice in Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. With the funding from the National Science Foundation, several small glaciers are being revisited and surveyed annually by Dixon along with Native American participants and UNM graduate student Nick Jarman. This research was expanded in 2008 to include Alaska’s Lake Clark National Park under a five-year research contract with the National Park Service. Collectively these research projects have received more than $1,150,000 in funding from both the National Science Foundation and National Park Service and will continue until 2012. Article (PDF)
Bruce B. Huckell, Senior Research Coordinator, Research Associate Professor
Since the fall of 2006, Huckell has been investigating a cache of Clovis artifacts that came to light in southwestern North Dakota some 35-40 years ago. The cache was found in a plowed field by a pheasant hunter in 1969; by 1975 he and the landowner—acting independently of one another—had recovered more than 140 artifacts, of which approximately 100 are still available for study. The field and laboratory investigations are supported by the National Geographic Society and the Maxwell Museum. Nearly all of the artifacts from the Beach Cache are bifacially flaked preforms—in other words, tools left at an intermediate stage of manufacture, ultimately to be finished into spear points or knives. Some 20 Clovis caches are known, and most contain such preforms. Many of the bifaces exhibit typical Clovis “overshot” flaking, a stone-working technique in which flakes are struck from one margin of the biface and travel all the way to or even off of the opposite margin. Also present were a few blades, a diagnostic Clovis artifact form. The Beach Cache is roughly 13,000 years old and is one of the most northerly yet known. The artifacts that comprise it are made of lithic materials available from sources to the south and southeast as far as 350-530 km, and as close as 16 km, suggesting that the people were heading north when the cache was deposited.
David Phillips, Curator of Archaeology, Research Associate Professor The Maxwell's archaeology program includes a long-term effort to map the site of Pottery Mound, a large 14th century pueblo in the Rio Puerco Valley west of Isleta Pueblo. The site was the scene of UNM’s Archaeological Field School for several years in the 1950s and early 1960s, under the direction of Dr. Frank Hibben and, in 1979, Dr. Linda Cordell. In addition to the mapping, surface artifact inventory has been initiated, and the erosional cuts created by the Rio Puerco are being monitored. Far more time is being spent on publishing research done half a century ago by Dr. Hibben. Using student notebooks, maps, and photographs, Dave and Maxwell volunteer Jean Ballagh have completed detailed descriptions of field studies in 1954 and 1955. They are close to completing a report on the field studies in 1957. Additional major efforts took place at the site in 1958, 1960-1961, and 1979, so by the time it ends, the Pottery Mound publication project will probably have taken a decade.
Dorothy Larson, Data Manager
Dorothy is conducting dissertation research that examines the relationship between migration, social identity, and variation in ceramic technological and decorative style. This project focuses on the late Developmental to Coalition period transition in the Albuquerque area, which is frequently portrayed as a “frontier” or boundary between the Socorro District to the south and the Santa Fe District to the north. This perception is largely driven by the presence of two different ceramic types: (1) Socorro Black-on-white, a mineral-painted ware that defines the Socorro phase of the late Developmental period (AD 1050-1200) and (2) Santa Fe Black-on-white, a carbon-painted ware that heralds the beginning of the Coalition period (AD 1200-1325). At the onset of the Coalition period, Santa Fe Black-on-white, common in the Santa Fe District to the north, began to co-occur with mineral-painted Socorro Black-on-white in the Albuquerque area. Her research will evaluate possible models for the social developments behind this change, including migration of new groups into the area or shifting social identities of existing groups. These different scenarios of social change have different implications for change in ceramic technological and decorative style. Attributes reflective of the entire production process, and including chemical and mineralogical data to determine location of production, will be collected and analyzed in order to evaluate the models.
Inquiries regarding research
opportunities should be directed to:
Dr. Bruce Huckell
Maxwell Museum of Anthropology
MSC01 1050
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
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