During WWII a select group of young Navajo men enlisted in the Marines with a unique weapon. Using the Navajo language, they devised a secret code that the enemy never deciphered. For over 40 years a cloak of secrecy hung over the Code Talker’s service until the code was declassified and they were finally honored […]
The promise of unimagined riches is what brought many of the earliest colonizers to the Arizona Territory. Following the trail to the discovery of the mother lode, they built, then dismantled and finally abandoned communities when mines played out – leaving behind tantalizing clues of difficult hardships. Some towns survived like Bisbee, Jerome, Tombstone and […]
For centuries, Hopi men grew cotton and wove the fibers into blankets and clothing. In the 1880s, with the arrival of Anglo missionaries and government officials, quilting was introduced to the Hopi people and it quickly became integrated into Hopi culture and ceremony with quilts being used in every Hopi household. Hopis today are 4th […]
The dividing line of the U.S.-Mexico border may be the most significant feature of the Arizona-Sonora borderland today, but the region is also at the center of major north-south corridors of human migration. In this talk, Scott warren offers an in-depth look at historical and contemporary patterns of south-north migration through this region, from ancient […]
How did the Apache impact late prehistoric peoples? Research provides evidence of ancestral Apaches in the southern Southwest as early as A.D. 1300. Evidence comes from chronometric dates obtained from storage features (covered with grass or leaves), on Apache pottery, and from roasting pits, all in direct association with other types of Apache material culture. […]
Arizona’s rivers were first, lush green ribbons of life through a desert landscape. They became sustaining paths, first for the indigenous, later for immigrants leaving wagon tracks. On the Salt River, Hohokam built vast canals to direct water for irrigation. The first European citizens of Phoenix used these same trenches. The history, stories and songs […]
During WWII a select group of young Navajo men enlisted in the Marines with a unique weapon. Using the Navajo language, they devised a secret code that the enemy never deciphered. For over 40 years a cloak of secrecy hung over the Code Talker’s service until the code was declassified and they were finally honored […]
In 1989, Alan Day lobbied the United States Congress and was granted approval to create our country’s first government-sponsored wild horse sanctuary on his South Dakota ranch. At the time, the government housed roughly 2,000 horses in feedlots. Fifteen hundred of those wild mustangs came to live at Mustang Meadows Ranch where, for four years, […]
In this presentation, Mr. Dart shows and discusses Native American ceramic styles that characterized specific peoples and eras in the U.S. Southwest prior to about 1450, and talks about how archaeologists use pottery for dating archaeological sites and interpreting ancient lifeways. He discusses the importance of context in archaeology, such as how things people make […]
When the first dining guide to the Valley of the Sun appeared in 1978, the authors had to explain what “sushi” was. Fast forward four decades, and Arizonans are munching rainbow rolls in shopping-mall food courts. The restaurant business in Arizona now brings in more than $11 billion a year. With stories, statistics and insider […]
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