Chaco Culture Conservancy is pleased to announce the next installment of the ongoing virtual lecture series for Aztec Ruins National Monument. Monday, August 30 at 6 pm, Dr. Stephen Lekson will present Millennium on Meridian: Tracking the History of the Ancient Southwest. You can join the lecture on Zoom through the link below or on our Facebook page where it will be streaming live. Follow us for information on upcoming lectures in this series.
Stephen H. Lekson (Ph.D. University of New Mexico 1988) is Curator of Anthropology for the Museum of Natural History and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Lekson is the author of numerous publications and books. The most well-known include The Chaco Meridian: Centers of the Political Power in the Ancient Southwest and A History of the Ancient Southwest.
Twenty years ago, Dr. Lekson suggested that three sequential Southwestern capitals—Chaco (850–1125), Aztec Ruins (1120–1280), and Casas Grandes (1250–1450)—were deliberately aligned north-south of each other, more-or-less on a meridian. For every archaeological period in the Southwest, from Basketmaker through Pueblo V, the largest and most important sites of each era were located on (or about) this meridian.
New archaeological data, new reading of Spanish colonial accounts and Native stories, and a new understanding of the Southwest’s relationship to the larger continent suggest that meridian alignment—or rather, the shifting of cultural center north and south—structures the history of the Ancient Southwest.
Join Zoom Meeting:
When: Monday, August 30, 2021
Time: 6:00 MDT
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88999067609?pwd=d2ZjOExCRXdkWFdHTnRmdGxsVGlaUT09
Meeting ID: 889 9906 7609
Passcode: 936151