Sus Eckert-Community Landscapes, Community Identity: Ancestral Pueblos of the Lion Mountain Area

This lecture is part of the Arizona Archaelogical and Historical Socety monthly lectures. Recorded September 16th, 2024.
The Lion Mountain area is located at the boundaries of three cultural traditions: the Rio Grande region, the Cibola region, and the Mogollon region. Over time, residents of the region built a Chaco Great House, constructed several post-Chacoan great houses, and witnessed the arrival of immigrants from the Four Corners region. Steve Lekson aptly described this area as one with a “mixed but interesting cultural-historical dynamic.” Understanding this dynamic has been the focus of the Lion Mountain Archaeological Project (LMAP) since 2015. In this presentation, I will discuss how our nearly 10 years of research in the region has informed on 300 years of Ancestral Pueblo traditions.
Suzanne L. Eckert is the Head of Collections at the Arizona State Museum. She earned her doctorate in 2003 from the Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University. Dr. Eckert’s research focuses on how late Ancestral Pueblo cultures organized ceramic technology. She is especially interested in how this technology integrated with other aspects of society, including migration, political and social organization, religious practice and ideology, and gender and ethnic relations.