PRINTA three-week institute for twenty-five school teachers on the origins and cultural history of the Pueblo Indian peoples of the American Southwest.
Marjorie Connolly, with educator Kathleen Stemmler, directs an institute on the origins and cultural history of the Pueblo Indian peoples of the American Southwest. At the time of Spanish contact in the sixteenth century, there were more than ninety Pueblo villages spread out along the Rio Grande River valley in northern New Mexico; today there are thrity-one. Archaeological evidence has shown that these peoples, representing four distinct language groups, originally inhabited the Mesa Verde and Chaco regions of southwestern Colorado—an area that was largely abandoned CE 1300. During week one, archaeological evidence for Pueblo origins is considered alongside traditional Indian perspectives on the emergence of the Pueblo peoples. During week two, participants explore issues of diversity and unity among the ancestral Pueblo peoples, as well as human adaptations to a changing natural environment in the Mesa Verde region. During week three, participants focus on the final decades of occupation in the region, Pueblo migrations to northern New Mexico (including Pueblo perspectives on the event), and the formation of modern Pueblo villages and contemporary Pueblo culture. Participants tour Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and other archaeological sites in southwestern Colorado, as well as Bandelier National Monument, Cochiti and Santa Clara Pueblos, and other sites around Santa Fe, New Mexico. Lectures and commentary during the site visits are provided by the project directors, Crow Canyon archaeologist Dr. Mark Varien, and Native American scholars Tessie Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo) and Joseph Suina (Cochiti Pueblo).
Faculty: Mark Varien, Shirley Powell, Tessie Naranjo, Joseph Suina