Forty Years of Sustained Community Center Research in the Central Mesa Verde Region

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Research, Education, and American Indian Partnerships at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

When he co-founded Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in 1982, Stuart Struever’s vision included an understanding that American archaeology needed an institution that could conduct long-term research. Perhaps nothing illustrates the value of long-term research more than Crow Canyon’s sustained research into central Mesa Verde region community centers, which are the largest sites in the region, many with the longest occupation histories. Crow Canyon’s research into community centers includes collaboration between many research associates, regional archaeologists, and institutions. Crow Canyon integrated the information gained from these efforts collectively and documented many additional community centers. Crow Canyon’s work started when the center mapped Sand Canyon Pueblo in 1983, its regional studies began in 1989, and the documentation and analysis of community centers continues to this day. This paper presents a historical review of this research and analyzes the current community center database that documents 263 of the largest ancestral Pueblo villages in southwestern Colorado.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Research, Education, and American Indian Partnerships at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36046.0