Interaction, Accommodation and Continuity among the Early Communities in the Northern Rio Grande Valley Brownbag Lecture presented by Steven Lakatos, OAS Project Director

For decades cultural developments in the Northern Rio Grande have been attributed to emigrating Anasazi groups from the San Juan Basin and Mesa Verde regions of northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado. Admittedly, the results of some household activities in the Northern Rio Grande Valley do reflect pan-regional Anasazi trends, but diachronic patterns are insufficiently explained by models of cultural lag or diffusion. An alternative interpretation suggests that Northern Rio Grande Developmental communities followed a different trajectory better explained through a model of encounter, accommodation and accumulation. From this perspective, site structure, settlement patterns and material culture reflect flexible, integrative mechanisms that accommodated ethnic differences and varied economic strategies. A continuity of village life and, perhaps, the foundation for the winter-summer moiety system still seen today resulted.

OAS Brownbag lectures begin at 12:00noon; doors open at 11:45. The talks are held in the New Mexico Film Museum Theater, 418 Montezuma in Santa Fe.