This is an opportunity for people of all ages to experience a wide range of artifacts from New Mexico’s rich cultural heritage.
The Society for American Archaeology defines archaeology as the systematic study of human cultures through material remains. The archaeological challenge is to learn about the past through the study of artifacts and the places people lived. The ever growing New Mexico archaeological record currently is represented by nearly 160,000 officially recorded sites These sites include 12,000 year old Clovis spear points left behind by the earliest Pleistocene big game hunters, 3000 year old Archaic rockshelters bearing witness to the initial tentative experiments with agriculture, sherds of the first pottery made 2000 years ago by the ancestors of Pueblo Indians, the religious monuments of Chaco Canyon, fragments of chain-mail armor form the Spanish Entrada, and the litter of bottles and cans that accumulated along the Santa Fe Trail since its opening in the 1820s. Come learn about a wide range of artifacts from these time periods at this hands-on exhibit. Experience how Native Americans made and used yucca cordage, stayed warm with turkey-feather blankets, and how the atl-atl was used by ancient hunters. This is also an opportunity to bring in your curious artifacts from the past and have an archaeologist help you with their identification and use.
