Life in the Tecolote Pueblo, AD 1200

The National Park Service and Fort Union National Monument announces its’ monthly “Glimpses of the Past” presentation. The program will be held at the CCHP/Santa Fe Trail Interpretive Center, 116 Bridge St., in Las Vegas, Thursday, Sept. 18 at 7 p.m.

The presentation is titled “A.D. 1200, Village Life in Northern New Mexico: Tecolote Pueblo” by professor emeritus of anthropology Robert Mishler. Using research data from skeletal remains, Mishler will assess village life at the ancestral pueblo of Tecolote. The data is primarily derived from NMHU graduate student theses, in particular a recent thesis on age at death, gender, stature, health and pathology of the human skeletons. The archaeological record, that dates back nearly 80 years, is used to interpret subsistence, architecture, settlement pattern, community organization, trade and exchange, technology, and other daily aspects of 13th century Tecolote Pueblo life.

Tecolote Pueblo, situated along the Tecolote River, was one of largest pueblo communities east of the Rio Grande with an occupation range from about A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1325. The site was first officially reported by Pecos scholar Alfred Kidder in 1917. In 1929 by Isabel Kelly, Frances Watkins and Eva Horner excavated the site under Kidder’ssupervision. Subsequent investigations have been done by Texas Tech U (1930-31), New Mexico Normal School (later, NMHU) (1932), and currently by NMHU.

Mishler graduated from Manchester College in secondary education. He later spent nearly four years in Nigeria establishing a trade school, teaching, and supervising physical facilities at several educational institutions. Mishler received an M.A. degree in anthropology from University of Colorado, Boulder and was the first full-time anthropologist at NMHU in 1969.

The “Glimpses of the Past” series of programs are presented to the public free of charge, in cooperation with the National Park Service and the Citizens Committee for Historic Preservation.

For more information, contact Fort Union National Monument at (505) 425-8025, or visit the park website at www.nps.gov/foun.