Our next regular meeting will be Tuesday, January 21, 2025.  
Casa Chapala, 9041 Research Blvd. #100 (Hwy 183 and Burnet Rd.)

2025 dues are due! Pay online or download a form to pay by mail at the Join/Renew tab.

Our January program will feature Myles Miller (Versar)  speaking on 


Mountains, Caves, Storm Gods, Ancestors: The Deep Time Origins of Southern Southwest Cosmologies

The nature and extent of Mesoamerican influences on the Prehispanic American Southwest have long been a topic of discussion and debate. Two decades of research into the sacred landscapes, iconography, and material culture of the Jornada and Mimbres Mogollon regions of the southern Southwest provide new insights, revealing persistent themes related to mountains and caves. Among past and present societies of the southern US Southwest and Mesoamerica, mountains and caves have multiple metaphorical and symbolic meanings relating to underworld, storm gods, ancestors, emergence, water, clouds, and rain.  These beliefs also served as the foundations of origin and emergence histories and politically legitimizing narratives throughout the US Southwest and Mesoamerica. Recent advances in radiocarbon dating, iconographic analysis, and considerations of rarely studied artifact types have led to a greater understanding of the age and origin of such beliefs.


Dating of perishable items used in cave shrines or displaying iconographic expressions of religious entities has established that some of the concepts underlying regional cosmologies were present as early as A.D. 600 or 700, indicating that these foundational cosmologies have significantly greater time depth than previously understood. This lecture will examine the artistic and material expressions of Jornada-Mimbres cosmologies, their deep time origins, and the question of whether they originated in Mesoamerica or were an Indigenous development that arose from a common pan-regional foundation.

Myles Miller has been professionally involved with the research into the Indigenous cultures of southern New Mexico and Trans-Pecos Texas since returning to El Paso upon completion of graduate school in 1983. During the past 40 years, he has conducted research throughout the region and has participated in numerous excavations of pre-Hispanic and historic Native American settlements in southern New Mexico, west Texas, and southeastern Arizona. His current research interests involve the relationships between Indigenous social organization, ritual, landscapes, and ceramic and rock art iconography; chronometrics and chronology; and chemical compositional analysis. He presently serves as a Principal Investigator with Versar Global Solutions and is currently supervising archeological work for the Bureau of Land Management, Fort Bliss Military Installation, White Sands Missile Range, and the Texas Department of Transportation. He has published numerous chapters in edited volumes and conference proceedings volumes as well as over sixty reports describing the results of excavation projects. He is co-editor of the volume Earth Ovens and Desert Lifeways: 10,000 Years of Indigenous Cooking in the Arid Landscapes of North America (The University of Utah Press, 2023). He was awarded the 2018 Award of Excellence in Cultural Resource Management by the Society for American Archaeology for his contributions to understanding the prehistory of southern New Mexico and west Texas and his contributions to cultural resource management practices.

The next regular meeting will be held on our usual schedule, the third Tuesday of the month at 7pm at Casa Chapala's Austin location, 9041 Research Blvd., Suite 100 (Hwy 183 and Burnet Rd.) Meetings are held on the third Tuesday of each month, except June and December. They are free and open to the public. For those who wish to come early, we gather around 5:45 PM for dinner, drinks, and fellowship. The short business meeting starts at 7:00 PM, followed by the guest speaker's presentation.

Upcoming

January 11 Labwork for Moore-Hancock materials. Sort and label historic ceramics, glass, nails, etc. for curation. Join us for a couple hours or stay the whole day. Macrobotanical Analysis office, 12308 Twin Creek Rd, B-104, Manchaca, 78652. 

Tuesdays, start date TBD  Labwork for Joyful Horse materials. Sort and label pre-contact artifacts (lots of lithics!) to create teaching kits available for loan to area educators. THC Wheless Lab, 2801 Wheless Lane, Austin 78723

Check our Facebook page or join our mailing list for information on meetings and online resources.

Wondering what our programs are like? View the list of speakers and topics we've had since 2006. Or watch a few of our pandemic-era programs on our YouTube channel.