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Pioneering Archaeology at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
- Location: ISM Dickson Mounds Museum, Lewistown
- Date: Tuesday, August 02, 2011, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
On Tuesday, August 2, 2011, Dr. Jonathan E. Reyman, Curator of Anthropology, Illinois State Museum, will present a lecture titled: Pioneering Archaeology at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico: George H. Pepper, Richard Wetherill, and the Hyde Exploring Expedition (1896-1901). The lecture is at 7:00 p.m. at Dickson Mounds as part of the monthly meeting of the Illinois Valley Archaeological Society, which is open to the public.
The Hyde Exploring Expedition, funded by Benjamin Talbot and Frederick E. Hyde, heirs to the Babbit’s Soap fortune, and nominally overseen by Frederick Ward Putnam of the Peabody Museum at Harvard and the American Museum of Natural History, conducted archaeological and ethnographic fieldwork in the American Southwest from 1896 through about 1906, most notably at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. George Pepper, a protégé of Putnam, was the field supervisor and Richard Wetherill, of Mesa Verde fame, was the expedition foreman and general manager assisted by his wife, Marietta, several brothers, and his brother-in-law, Orion Buck, the expedition’s freighter.
Work began in spring 1896 at Pueblo Bonito, the largest archaeological site in Chaco Canyon. It proved to be a treasure trove in terms of the artifacts recovered, the architecture, and the site context. Although Pepper was only 23 when assigned to the work and had never conducted fieldwork in the Southwest, he was a typical late Victorian natural scientist who took an interest not only in the archaeological work but also in the natural environment in which he found himself.
Among the pioneering aspects of Pepper’s work at Pueblo Bonito and Chaco Canyon was recording natural and cultural stratigraphy in sites, piece-plotting the location of objects found in rooms, providing detailed room measurements, and making an extensive photographic record of both sites and the lives of the Navajo who lived at Chaco. He and Wetherill took literally thousands of black and white photographs, some of which Pepper later had hand colored for lecture use and publication. This presentation provides an overview of the Hyde Exploring Expedition’s work at Chaco Canyon.
IVAS programs are free of charge and the public is welcome. For more information call 309.547.3721.
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