Speakers Bureau Speaker
Allen Dart, M.A., RPA, Tucson
Allen Dart has worked and volunteered as a professional archaeologist in New Mexico and Arizona since 1975, for government, private companies, and nonprofit organizations. He is employed full-time as a principal investigator in the Tucson office of EcoPlan Associates, Inc., an environmental and cultural resources consulting firm, and volunteers his time as Executive Director of Tucson's nonprofit Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, which he founded in 1993 to provide educational and scientific programs in archaeology and culture. A Registered Professional Archaeologist, he has been a recipient of the Arizona Governor's Award in Public Archaeology for his efforts to bring archaeology and history to the public.
Presentations are suitable for high school as well as adult audiences.
Archaeology and Cultures of Arizona 
Many different peoples have contributed to making Arizona such a unique and fascinating cultural place. In this program archaeologist Allen Dart summarizes and interprets the archaeology of Arizona from the earliest “Paleoindians” through Archaic period hunters and foragers, the transition to true village life, and the later prehistoric archaeological cultures (Puebloan, Mogollon, Sinagua, Hohokam, Salado, and Patayan). He also discusses connections between archaeology and history, and between Arizona’s Native Americans and people derived from the Old World.
Host organization provides PowerPoint presentation setup.
Arts and Culture of Ancient Southern Arizona Hohokam Indians
Hohokam Native American culture flourished in southern Arizona from the sixth through fifteenth centuries. Hohokam artifacts, architecture, and other material culture provide archaeologists with clues for identifying where the Hohokam lived, for interpreting how they adapted to the Sonoran Desert for centuries, and explaining why the Hohokam culture mysteriously disappeared. Using PowerPoint and authentic prehistoric artifacts, archaeologist Allen Dart illustrates the material culture of the Hohokam and presents possible interpretations about their relationships to the natural world, their time reckoning, religious practices, beliefs, and deities, and possible reasons for the eventual demise of their way of life. The presentation includes abundant illustrations of Hohokam artifacts, rock art, and other cultural features.
Host organization provides PowerPoint presentation setup.
Rock Calendars and Ancient Time Pieces 
Native Americans in the Southwest developed sophisticated skills in astronomy and predicting the seasons, centuries before Old World peoples first entered the region. In this presentation archaeologist Allen Dart discusses the petroglyphs at Picture Rocks, the architecture of the “Great House” at Arizona’s Casa Grande Ruins, and other archaeological evidence of ancient astronomy and calendrical reckoning; and interprets how these discoveries may have related to ancient Native American rituals.
Host organization provides PowerPoint presentation setup.
Set in Stone but Not in Meaning: Southwestern Indian Rock Art
Ancient Indian petroglyphs (symbols carved or pecked on rocks) and pictographs (rock paintings) are claimed by some to be forms of writing for which meanings are known. But are such claims supported by archaeology or by Native Americans? Archaeologist Allen Dart illustrates how petroglyph and pictograph styles changed through time and over different regions of the Southwest prehistorically and historically, and discusses how even the same rock art symbol may be interpreted differently from popular, scientific, and modern Native American perspectives.
Host organization provides PowerPoint presentation setup.
