Annual ENMU anthropology guest lecture/conference set

Ted Goebel, a professor at Texas A&M University, will lecture on the Ice Age origins of the first Americans at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 24 in the Jack Williamson Liberal Arts Building during the 13th Annual Cynthia Irwin-Williams Lecture Series/Conference at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales.

Goebel's area of research includes Siberia, Kamchatka and Chukotka, Alaska, Nevada, California, Oregon, Utah and Idaho. He excavates early sites, as well as surveys for new sites. He works on a variety of materials from ancient insects to human coprolites (fecal matter) to projectile points.

A tour of the Miles Anthropological Museum in Lea Hall will be conducted from 4-7 p.m. that day.

A tour of the Blackwater Draw Archaeological Site will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25.

At 11 a.m. there will be an atlatl competition at the site. An atlatl is a primitive dart-throwing system in which a hand-held throwing device creates leverage to add velocity to the dart.

Beginning at 1 p.m. that day there will be workshops in the Art and Anthropology Building on campus.

Mu Alpha Nu will provide dinner on Feb. 24, and breakfast and lunch on Feb. 25 to groups that RSVP.

Irwin-Williams (1936-90) began working at the Denver Museum of Natural History at age 12, and eventually earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in 1963. She taught at ENMU from 1963-82, and was president of the Society for American Archaeology from 1977-79.

The event is sponsored by Mu Alpha Nu, ENMU's Anthropology Club, and the Department of Anthropology and Applied Archaeology.