Desert Foothills Chapter - Monthly Meeting

When
09 May 2018
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location
Community Building (Maitland Hall) at The Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church, 6502 East Cave Creek Road, Cave Creek, AZ 85331 (near the Dairy Queen)

DFC-AAS: May 09 – Lindsay Montgomery

Dr. Lindsay Montgomery presents, The Art of Storytelling: Ute Rock Art in New Mexico. What would we do without stories? Stories tell us about who we are, where we came from, and how to act in the world. We often conceive of stories in terms of written or spoken narratives and ignore the important role that material culture plays in storytelling. Instead of fixating on human storytellers, this talk focuses on the narratives inscribed in the basalt rocks that traverse New Mexico’s landscape. These rock art images offer a new archive, which can be read alongside indigenous oral histories and historic documents produced by Westerners. While there is a diversity of rock art images to choose from within New Mexico, this talk discusses a growing body of Ute rock art documented in the northern extent of the Rio Grande Gorge. A close examination of this imagery reveals the intimate connection that exists between rock art, ecology, and ritual among the Ute. By listening to the stories these images tell, archaeologists gain an expanded understanding of Ute social practices and world view.

Dr. Lindsay Montgomery is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arizona where she teaches and writes about colonialism, mobility, indigenous knowledge, and cultural landscapes. Before joining the University of Arizona faculty, she held a post-doctoral fellowship at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, working alongside Dr. Chip Colwell to co-author a manuscript on the history of Indian Education among the Hopi, Lakota (Sioux), Cheyenne-Arapaho, and S’Klallam tribes. Dr. Montgomery received a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Human Rights from Columbia University and completed her Ph.D. in anthropology from Stanford University in 2015. Her dissertation research focused on Ute and Comanche encampment practices and iconographic traditions during the seventeenth and eighteenth century in the northern Rio Grande region of New Mexico. Her current research draws on archaeology and oral history to explore the archaeology and history of the Jicarilla Apache and their interactions with the Pueblo of Picuris.

Reception and socialization at 7:00 pm, program begins approximately 7:30 pm.