David Yetman

David Yetman: University of Arizona Distinguished Outreach Professor and Host, “In the Americas with David Yetman”

Wednesday, May 1, 2024,

2:30pm – 3:30 pm,

ASA Koffler Great Room and Zoom

 

Take a trip through southern Mexico’s beautiful landscapes with David Yetman, noted authority on the Sonoran desert and host of the award winning public television series “In the Americas.” His lecture will feature photographs and stories about the culture, history, and environment of an extraordinary region.

The Valleys of Cuicatlán and Tehuacán are lauded by botanists for their spectacular plant life—they contain the densest columnar cacti forests in the world. Recent archaeological excavations reveal them also to be a formative Mesoamerican site as well. So singular is this region that it is home to the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve and has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In this lecture, Dr. Yetman provides a synthesis of the geology, ecology, history, and cultures of the valleys, showing their importance and influence as Mesoamerican arteries for environmental and cultural interchange through Mexico. He also reveals the extraordinary plant life that draws from habitats ranging from deserts to tropical forests.

David Yetman has been a research social scientist at the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona since 1992, specializing in peoples and ecology of northwest Mexico and the southwestern United States.  He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Arizona and is the author of numerous books and articles on the peoples and landscapes of the desert southwest. A trail in the Tucson Mountains bears his name.

Compiled and edited by Marilyn B. Skinner, Academy Village Volunteer

You can connect to Zoom either by using the following URL: https://zoom.us/j/95456511620?pwd=OC9GcnJRNmJpMTdXdXFhaUpCUkx4QT09 or by opening a browser to zoom.com/join and typing in Meeting ID: 954 5651 1620 and Passcode: 85747 

May 1: “Mexico’s Valleys of Cuicatlán and Tehuacán: From Deserts to Clouds”