Workshops and Lectures

February 22nd, 2025 | 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

We are excited to offer the unique experience of handcrafting a flute with Native American artist, Aaron White. Using local materials, Aaron will guide you through the process of shaping, sanding, decorating, sealing, and song-making your very own flute. All materials will be provided, and attendees will leave with the flutes they make.

Aaron White is a flute musician and guitar player and is part Northern Diné from the Blacksheep Clan and Northern Ute tribe Whiteriver Band. His band, Burning Sky, was nominated for the 2003 Grammy of Best Native American Album and Won Group of The Year at the Native American Music Awards in 2004.

$50 for DVPP Members

$60 for non-DVPP Members

March 29th, 2025 | 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Join August Wood and Joshua Yazzie for a hands-on basket-weaving experience! In this workshop, you'll learn all about the art of basket weaving using traditional techniques.

They’ll start with a demonstration, showcasing the materials they use and sharing the history behind the craft. Then, get ready to roll up your sleeves and weave your very own patterns. With materials like yarn and rope, you'll learn how to weave a beautiful piece.

Whether you're a complete beginner or looking to expand your crafting skills, this workshop offers a fun and interactive way to connect with a timeless tradition while making something you can be proud of!

$55 for DVPP Members

$65 for non-DVPP Members

April 12th, 2025 | 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Join the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve for a hands-on flintknapping workshop! ASU graduate students, John Murray and Nic Hansen, will guide you through the art of shaping stone tools using traditional techniques.

All materials will be provided, and you will be able to leave with whatever creation you make!

$30 for DVPP Members

$40 for non-DVPP Members

January 31st, 2025 | 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Archaeologists use material culture—objects made and used by people—to understand relationships between individuals in the past. But how are shared objects connected to social interactions? This presentation explores this question through a combination of computer simulations and artifact analysis in the Western Pueblo region (AD 1100-1500). Focusing on areas from central Arizona to northern Arizona and western New Mexico, the study examines pottery, projectile points, and architecture to map social networks using similarities in design. An agent-based model of small-scale societies helps interpret how these material culture networks reflect real-world human connections.

Robert Bischoff is a PhD candidate at Arizona State University (ASU) and works as the digital data specialist for the Center for Archaeology and Society at ASU. He received his BA and MA degrees from Brigham Young University where he completed a thesis on San Juan Red Ware in the Four Corners region. Robert has excavated Fremont and Ancestral Puebloan sites, but he considers himself a “computational archaeologist” and does most of his research on museum collections and legacy data. He has published on the Ancestral Pueblo, Fremont, and Hohokam and specializes in quantitative methods such as network science, GIS, geometric morphometrics (2D and 3D analysis of shape), and agent-based modeling (computer simulation).

February 21st, 2025 | 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.

The Old Leupp Boarding School (OLBS) historical archaeological site is a significant place that is important to the Diné (Navajo). The U.S. Federal Government established a federal Indian boarding school to educate Navajo children from 1909 to 1942. After the start of World War II in 1943, the U.S. War Department reutilized the OLBS as a Japanese Isolation Center. This former United States federal Indian boarding school and Citizens Isolation Center deeply impacts the community histories of both the Diné and Nikkei (Japanese Americans). Davina Ruth Two Bears will briefly speak about the community-accountable archaeological project that is currently underway that centers the history and archaeology of the Old Leupp site.

Davina Ruth Two Bears is Diné (Navajo) originally from the community of Birdsprings on the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona. In 2019 Davina received her PhD from Indiana University-Bloomington in anthropology with an emphasis in archaeology, and a PhD minor in Native American Indigenous Studies. She is currently a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Arizona State University in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Davina’s current community-based research of the Old Leupp Boarding School, an early 20th century federal Indian boarding school, focuses on its reuse as a Japanese Isolation Center in 1943 during World War II.

March 28th, 2025 | 10 a.m. - 11 a.m.

Join us for an engaging talk by PhD Candidate for the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Jayde Hirniak, on the role of volcanic ash (tephra) in advancing archaeological and paleontological research through tephrochronology. She will highlight recent breakthroughs in detecting cryptotephra—non-visible ash layers that can be traced over thousands of kilometers—and their impact on understanding human evolution. Key discoveries, including the identification of the 74 ka Youngest Toba Tuff in South Africa and Ethiopia, enable high-resolution correlations across regions previously thought unconnected. This upcoming lecture will demonstrate how these innovations are reshaping our ability to address major questions about early human behavior across vast geographic areas