Event: Wednesday Talk: Birds in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, 800-1150 CE

Abstract: In the North American Southwest, the long-term centrality of birds to Pueblo and Ancestral Pueblo life has been demonstrated both ethnographically and archaeologically. This talk explores the relationship between people and birds in Chaco Canyon during its major occupation between 800 and 1150 CE. Located in northwestern New Mexico, Chaco has been the subject of extensive study and debate, especially regarding the nature of social organization and inequality. Six museum collections were examined in order to produce a dataset that presents all avifaunal remains excavated over the last 130 years. Results not only shed light on the value of birds to the prehispanic occupants of Chaco Canyon, but contribute to ongoing debates regarding the nature of social organization in the canyon. This project also demonstrates the importance of (re)examining collections from historic excavations and the value of using legacy and archival data to enhance provenience and contextual information.

Bio: Dr. Kate Bishop is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She received her PhD in Anthropology from UCLA in 2019. Her research has focused on developing an understanding of human-animal relationships throughout the Americas, spanning the last 4,000 years of the human past and ranging geographically from New Mexico, Guatemala, Mexico, and California. Her current research focuses specifically on the importance of birds in the Ancestral Pueblo region of the Southwest United States. Through her research she seeks to highlight the importance of legacy data, collections-based research, and contextual reconstruction of historic collections.