MIMBRES SITES AND PONY HILL PETROGLYPHS

Join us for a trip to Silver City and the Mimbres Valley led by Mimbres scholar Pat Gilman. We will plan to spend Friday and Saturday nights in Silver City. For those who are able to arrive in Silver City before 3:30 on Friday, there is the option of visiting the Mimbres pottery collection (probably the largest on display in the world) at the Western New Mexico University Museum in Silver City. The Deming Luna Museum in Deming is also worth a stop on the way to Silver City to view their Mimbres pottery.  It closes at 4 PM, and it is not open on Sundays.  That evening, we will have a group dinner with some guests from the Grant County Archaeological Society.  Pat will present a short talk on the Mimbres.

On Saturday, we will visit the Mattocks site, one of the dozen or so large Mimbres pueblos in the Mimbres Valley.  Pat was the crew chief for excavations at the site in the 1970s and has recently published a book analyzing the site.  We will then do a half-mile walk in to see some Apache pictographs, and we will stop at an overlook to see the location of the tragically destroyed Galaz site, one of the two ritual centers in the Mimbres Valley.  Then we will visit Old Town, at the south end of the valley, the second ritual center.

On Sunday as we head home, we will visit the Pony Hills Petroglyph site, which is northeast of Deming.

It is about a 3.5 hour drive to Silver City from Tucson.  Silver City has some historic hotels and a number of interesting restaurants.  Camping is also available.

Both the Mattocks site and the WNM University Museum have $5.00 and $10 donations respectively

The trip is limited to 20 people, and you must be an AAHS member to participate. There will be some short hiking of a few miles during the site visits. High-clearance vehicles are recommended for visiting the Pony Hills petroglyph site. To sign up, email aahs1916@gmail.com.