Hiking into the Past: The Sierra Ancha Cliff Dwellings with John Mack

Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church 6502 E. Cave Creek Rd., Cave Creek, AZ, United States

This presentation examines the remarkable living structures built by the people who first lived in the canyons of the Sierra Ancha wilderness during the early Middle Ages. The architectural dwellings reflect the culture and history of these people and help us understand their contributions to life in the Arizona desert. The presentation includes numerous photos […]

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Growing in the Desert: The History & Culture of the Tohono O’odham with Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan

Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church 6502 E. Cave Creek Rd., Cave Creek, AZ, United States

Many Arizonans call the Sonoran Desert and its striking landscapes home. Long before our urban centers and city lights lit up the dark desert skies, the Tohono O’odham were cultivating and shaping the land with abundant agriculture—from squash and beans to corn and cotton. For generations they passed down their rich knowledge and culture grown […]

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Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West with Betsy Fahlman

Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church 6502 E. Cave Creek Rd., Cave Creek, AZ, United States

Mining is the transformative industry of the American West—one that competes in scale and in color with the scenic landscape on its own terms, with the industrial sublime dynamically coexisting with the natural one. These landscapes are located at the bedrock of economic development—the risky speculation from which huge fortunes could be made and lost—and […]

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Along the California Trail: Our State’s Pioneers with Jay Cravath

Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church 6502 E. Cave Creek Rd., Cave Creek, AZ, United States

An ancient set of Indigenous paths and the natural flow of the Gila River created a major artery for travel through pioneer Arizona. The Gila provided a ready route for the earliest traders, including Toltecs of Mexico, who traded with the Mogollon, Anasazi and Hohokam. The intrepid Padre Francisco Garces, performed missionary work during six […]

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Along the California Trail

Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church 6502 E. Cave Creek Rd., Cave Creek, AZ, United States

An ancient set of Indian paths and the natural flow of the Gila River created a major artery for travel through pioneer Arizona. The Gila provided a route for the earliest traders, including Toltecs of Mexico, who traded with the Anasazi and Hohokam. The intrepid Padre Francisco Garces, performed missionary work during six excursions along […]

Free

The Earliest Apache in Arizona: Evidence and Arguments – Cave Creek

Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church 6502 E. Cave Creek Rd., Cave Creek, AZ, United States

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. […]

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Smitten By Stone: How We Came to Love the Grand Canyon – Cave Creek

Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church 6502 E. Cave Creek Rd., Cave Creek, AZ, United States

In spite of being one of the “Seven Natural Wonders of the World,” humans have not always seen the Grand Canyon in a positive light. First seen by Europeans in the year 1540, the canyon was not comprehended easily. Throughout the entire exploratory era, lasting nearly 320 years, conquistadores, explorers, trappers and miners viewed the […]

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The Explorations and Discoveries of George Bird Grinnell, The Father of Glacier National Park

Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church 6502 E. Cave Creek Rd., Cave Creek, AZ, United States

The great West that George Bird Grinnell first encountered in 1870 as a 21-year old man was shortly to disappear before his eyes. Nobody was quicker to sense the desecration or was more eloquent in crusading against the poachers, the hidehunters, and the disengaged U.S. Congress than George Bird Grinnell, the “Father of American Conservation.” Grinnell […]

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The Eagle and the Archaeologists: The Lindberghs’ 1929 Southwest Aerial Survey

Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church 6502 E. Cave Creek Rd., Cave Creek, AZ, United States

Charles Lindbergh is best known for his famous 1927 flight across the Atlantic Ocean.  But few realize that Lindbergh and his wife, Anne, played a brief but important role in archaeology.  In 1929 they teamed up with noted archaeologist Alfred Kidder to conduct an unprecedented aerial photographic survey of Southwest prehistoric sites and geologic features […]

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The Billingsley Hopi Dancers

Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church 6502 E. Cave Creek Rd., Cave Creek, AZ, United States

In 1921 the Hopi were told that “church people” petitioned Congress to stop their “pagan” dancing.  A platform was erected on the U.S.Capitol steps where both Houses of Congress assembled with their families to see the Hopi dancers.  Following the performance, Congress passed a Resolution giving the Hopi permission to carry on their dancing “for […]

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