Departmental News

Posted:  Oct 26, 2020 - 11:00am

Thatcher Rogers has been awarded a Fall 2020 High Priority New Mexico Research Grant for his project The Effects of Social Interaction on Population Movement in the Prehispanic Southwest Borderlands.

Abstract:

The development of formal political boundaries and the construction of infrastructure to that effect, such as the contemporary United States-Mexico International Border, provide a clean division between two perceived national identities. Both past and present borders, however, promote zones of dynamic cultural identity construction. This project examines relationships between social identity, interaction, and population movement in the borderlands by examining late prehispanic (A.D. 1200-1450) New Mexico and Arizona communities. As part of this project, Thatcher will submit archaeological samples from several sites for radiocarbon dating to investigate when the study area became a cultural borderland and how the structural layout of a site grew in response to population movement in the past, with the objective of informing our knowledge of contemporary social identity construction along the border.