Archaeology Cafe: What’s West of Phoenix: Patayan Archaeology of the Lower Gila River (Phoenix)

Knowledge-seekers of every kind are welcome at Archaeology Café at Changing Hands for a season of programs exploring the deep and diverse history of Phoenix and the greater Southwest in a jargon-free zone. Join us as Dr. Aaron Wright explores “What’s West of Phoenix: Patayan Archaeology of the Lower Gila River.”

The Patayan tradition in southwestern Arizona is commonly dismissed as a mobile hunting-and-gathering lifestyle with little relevance to the Big Picture of Southwest history. This presentation shares recent archaeological and ethnohistoric research that counters this prevailing narrative, and restores Patayan as one of the four main cultural traditions of the indigenous Southwest.

This program is supported by a grant from Arizona Humanities.