Our meeting place is in the Estancia Upper Elementary School Library.  Go to the north dead end of 8th street.  There is a parking lot there, walk north through the gate in a chain link fence and into the library.

OUR USUAL MEETING PLACE

FOR MAY

1. •Meeting: 6:30 p.m. May 3rd, 2010
   

2. •Final meeting of the season, Bella Note Restaurant in Estancia
   

3. •Speaker:  Dr. Joan Mathien
   

4. •Title: "Understanding the Role of Turquoise in the Chaco World"

Dr. Joan Mathien has been researching Chaco Canyon for almost thirty years. She has many publications on Chaco research and recently retired from the National Park Service. Dr. Mathien has produced considerable research on the use of turquoise, and OAS is hoping to collaborate with her on the development of a turquoise exhibit. 

Some of the work recently completed with her colleagues will deal with how turquoise is formed, how it alters through time, and how we can fingerprint the different source areas so that we can identify the sources from which artifacts in the Chaco World were mined.  Much of the latter work is ongoing and we are just beginning to link Chacoan artifacts with some known and unknown sources.  Our long-term goal is to be able to suggest how early trade networks may have linked inhabitants of the Chaco World with their neighbors, both in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico.