SAR Field Trip: Pecos Pueblo at the Beginning

Pecos Pueblo at the Beginning
Field Trip. Friday, April 5, 2013, 8:00 am--4:00 pm

Pecos Pueblo is one of the most historically significant sites in New Mexico. As the largest and easternmost of the Pueblo villages, by 1540 it was home to at least 2,000 inhabitants.

In 1915, Dr. A. V. Kidder, the acknowledged dean of Southwest archaeology, began a ten-year project at Pecos Pueblo. The intensive excavations were the first in the United States explicitly designed to demonstrate the value of scientific techniques for exploring the past. Kidder's archaeology at Pecos and surrounding sites has long been the lens through which archaeologists and historians understand the long history of Rio Grande Pueblo peoples.

Join Judy Reed and Pecos National Historical Park volunteer Rudy Busé, who is Kidder's grandson; and National Park Service curator Heather Young in a full-day exploration of villages ancestral to Pecos Pueblo. We will hike off-trail to visit both the Rowe Ruin and the Forked Lightning Pueblo—two pueblos that are not usually open to the public. We will also go behind the scenes to see the magnificent artifact collections at Pecos National Historical Park. Throughout the day, we will discuss the stories of how people came together at Pecos.

Video recording and editing by SAR volunteer John Sadd.