2016 Arizona Archaeological Council Fall Conference

 

The Arizona Archaeological Council (AAC) is pleased to announce the 2016 AAC Fall Conference. The symposium will be held at the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa on Friday November 18, with a reception to follow afterwards on the rooftop.

 

Hoski Schaafsma will chair the morning session, and the theme is “The Archaeology of Queen Creek Drainage from the Phoenix Basin to Top of the World". Although extensive prehistoric and historic period settlements are present in this area, until recently comparatively little archaeological research had been focused on Queen Creek. Most of what is known about prehistoric and historic populations in south-central Arizona is based on work along the lower Salt and middle Gila Rivers, and papers presented in this session will compare and contrast the archaeology of the Queen Creek drainage from Top of the World on the east, to its confluence with the Gila River at Gila Crossing on the west. Despite the obscurity of the archaeology in this region, recent investigations have shown that Queen Creek was occupied consistently from the Archaic through the Historic Periods.

The theme of the afternoon session is “New Advances in Arizona Archaeology”. We invite archaeologists who have recent research they would like to share with the Arizona archaeological community to participate. The session will include reports on current excavation projects, as well as papers on recent developments in archaeological method and theory. The session will also include a panel discussion on site naming conventions that will be lead by Glenn Darrington.  

The AAC is inviting speakers to present papers for either session, and selected conference papers will be published in the peer reviewed AAC journal. Specific details for the conference agenda are forthcoming. Please direct any questions to AACBoard@gmail.com