Community Lectures

2008 Four Corners Lecture Series

March 17–October 15, 2008

This annual program features a wide variety of knowledgeable speakers, including Crow Canyon scholars, on a variety of topics relevant to the peoples and cultures of the Four Corners area, past and present. The series is cosponsored by the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Mesa Verde National Park, Fort Lewis College, the Anasazi Heritage Center, the Cortez Cultural Center, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, and Aztec Ruins National Monument.

The theme of this year's series is "All Our Relations: Native American Patterns of Kin and Community." For a complete list of topics, presenters, and venues in 2008, see the lecture calendar on the Mesa Verde National Park Web site.

Diatremes, Stone Tools and Pots: How Local Geology Contradicts the Prevailing Theory of Trade With the Chuska Mountains

September 4, 7:00 p.m.

Cortez Cultural Center, Cortez, Colorado

Geologist Kim Gerhardt and Crow Canyon archaeologist Fumi Arakawa will present the results of their research on the use of a distinctive type of rock in the manufacture of stone tools and pottery by the ancestral Pueblo people. What they have learned is making archaeologists rethink ancient trade networks!