The San Juan Basin Archaeological Society invites the public to a presentation. After a brief business meeting, Dr. Thatcher Seltzer-Rogers will present "The End of the Mimbres Culture in Historical and Regional Context." A reception will start things off at 6:30 p.m. in the CSWS foyer.

Abstract: An icon in southwest New Mexico's archaeology is the Classic Mimbres Black-on-white figurative bowl. Produced from the 11th through early 12th century AD, the Mimbres bowl has become an emblem for the ancient Southwest as seen on Fred Harvey fine china in the early to mid-20th century with this time period in the Mimbres valley also being the main period of interest for archaeologists in southern New Mexico. Yet, despite having a historical lineage going back several centuries in southwestern New Mexico, by approximately AD 1150, the production of Mimbres Black-on-white fully and irreparably ceased with all major settlements in the valley extensively to completely depopulated. Although archaeologists commonly factor these into debated narratives of a Chihuahua cultural fluorescence, Mimbres scholars tend to focus on assessing if the late 12th and early 13th century is one of cultural continuity or not instead of proposing ideas for just why this happened and what this informs us as to Mimbres practices and acceptance. In this talk, I advocate moving beyond a comparative assessment of if there is change or not and instead focus on what the termination of the Mimbres tradition tells us about the inhabitants themselves as well as the impacts on adjacent communities in a larger, historical narrative.

Bio: Thatcher Seltzer-Rogers (PhD, Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2023) is the Deputy Director at the New Mexico Office of Archaeological Studies, where he oversees all day-to-day operations and projects. He specializes in the archaeology of the International Four Corners (where Arizona, New Mexico, Sonora, and Chihuahua meet) and is the author of dozens of peer-reviewed papers available in American Antiquity, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, and Kiva, among many others. He has conducted extensive fieldwork and laboratory analysis for sites in central and southeastern Arizona and southern New Mexico as well as in northwestern Chihuahua. He is also the President of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico Director of Business Operations (Deputy Director), Office of Archaeological Studies Research Associate, Jornada Research Institute

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