A Southwest Summer: Pecos Archaeology Conference

I am at Pecos Archaeology Conference this weekend. For 3 days, the conference is renting a campground in a pine forest just outside of Blanding, Utah. A large white tent with vaulted ceilings and soft yellow globe lights serves as the central gathering space for papers and socializing. 


My recent research has been on ground slate tool manufacture in the Northwest Coast and Alaska, so I did not have relevant research to present at a Southwest Archaeology conference. I did learn a lot attending, though, and was especially interested in what my contemporary twenty-something researchers were doing. There are no electronics for PowerPoint presentations or any sort of visual aid, so some of the most entertaining talks have used lots of visual description and hand gestures to describe research details and project methods. Bad archaeology jokes are encouraged. 


Pecos does not have the formality of a larger anthropology conference such as the AAA's, and that is part of the appeal. 
Like the AAA's, however, the real magic happens when the presentations are over and people are free to talk to one another with no boundaries. I notice that this is a gathering of friends and colleagues who are there to get a chance to share their research from the past year and get interested in what their colleagues are doing. 


The campsites are scattered around the periphery like neighborhoods around a Great Kiva. When the sun goes down, a few of the old timers pick up their fiddles and mandolins and play into the night. 

Walls come down and friends are made. Around a circle of camp chairs, over dinner, during a band set. On the last day, tents will be taken down, cars packed, and everyone will caravan out and spread to their corner of the Four Corners until next year, richer with new ideas, knowledge, and friends. 

The group: Representing Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, BLM, and PaleoWest.

Shot of camp hangout area.