Allen Dart, Executive Director, Old Pueblo Archeology Center
Wednesday, September 13, 2023,
2:30pm-3:30pm,
ASA Koffler Great Room, and Zoom
If you have missed one of Allen Dart’s past presentations here at the ASA, you now have another opportunity. As part of our Deep Dive into Water Issues lecture series which explores water issues in the Southwest, Allen will be giving us the historical background of irrigation in the Southwest. This should help us better understand the complexity of an issue for which there is no easy solution.
Before 1500 CE, Native American cultures took advantage of southern Arizona’s long growing season and tackled its challenge of limited precipitation by developing the earliest and most extensive irrigation works in all of North America. Agriculture was introduced to Arizona more than 4,000 years before present, and irrigation systems were developed here at least 3,500 years ago – several hundred years before irrigation was established in ancient Mexico. This presentation by archaeologist Allen Dart provides an overview of ancient irrigation systems in the southern Southwest and discusses irrigation’s implications for understanding social complexity.
Registered Professional Archaeologist Allen Dart has worked in Arizona and New Mexico since 1975 for federal and state governments, private companies, and nonprofit organizations. He is the executive director of Tucson’s nonprofit Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, which he founded in 1993 to provide educational and scientific programs in archaeology, history, and cultures. Al has received awards and honors from the National Park Service, the American Rock Art Research Association, the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, and multiple Arizona archaeology-advocacy organizations for his efforts to bring archaeology and history to the public. He has presented programs about southwestern archaeology for the Arizona Senior Academy since 2008.
Compiled and edited by Rosemary Brown, Academy Village Volunteer
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