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VIRTUAL - T-Doors, Tri-Walls, and Sub-Floors: Southwestern Examples of Clunky Evidence in the Age of Big Data
October 7, 2020 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm MDT
This is an online event.
Sponsored by: AIA-Boulder Society
AIA Society: Boulder

In Southwestern archaeology, pottery has always held pride-of-place for both quantity and quality of archaeological data. Pottery defines the basic “culture areas,” and changes in pottery track much of the history we infer for those regions. Other, larger, clunkier evidence is worth a look: Architecture, for example. Various “types” of buildings — as valid as “types” of pottery — sometimes are distributed across ceramic boundaries, and they seem to tell different stories. This talk will look at several patterns of larger evidence — including the iconic T-shaped doors of Mesa Verde. (Or of Chaco? Or of the Sierra Madre?) Comparing and contrasting pottery data — increasingly, Big Data — with other larger evidence reveals new patterns in prehistory that neither pottery or buildings alone might miss.