March 6th: Lecture by John Kantner

A Tale of Two Pilgrimage Centers: Chaco and Nasca

One-thousand years ago, a monumental religious center emerged in Chaco Canyon that soon grew to dominate the cultural landscape of the northern American Southwest. A millennium earlier, in the Nasca region on the south coast of Peru, another stunning ceremonial center developed with remarkable similarities to Chaco. In both cases, most scholars believe that pilgrims traveled from many miles around to experience the majesty of these extraordinary desert centers, and many of the ceremonial activities they engaged in were quite similar despite their development in quite different times and places. In this multimedia presentation, archaeologist John Kantner compares the evolution of Chaco and Nasca as a way to understand how and why influential ceremonial centers emerged in the ancient human past.

(Brush National Lecture)

March 6 at 6:30 pm (Refreshments to precede lecture at 6:00)
The Dalton School, 108 East 89th Street, Goldman Library