Michael Bletzer This is Me

Education

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1. 1. Archaeology Southwest, Volume 21-2 (Spring 2007), Southwest Archaeology: The Next Generation [ASW21-02] : Center for Desert Archaeology

   www.cdarc.org/store/index.php? - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/1/2007   Last Visited: 5/20/2008

   • Forgotten Pueblos: An Archaeological Assessment of Colonial Piro Settlement - Michael Bletzer, Southern Methodist University

2. 2. Welcome to MyMountainMail.Com, Socorro and Catron County, Online News

   www.mymountainmail.com/stories - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/1/2004   Last Visited: 8/29/2004

   "The excavation took place the last two weeks of June right up to the 4th of July weekend," said Michael Bletzer, director of the dig."We had, on average 6 to 8 volunteers working with us, which is about as much as one can handle, given the delicate nature of the site.All the architecture is adobe and often in such a state as to be not easily discernible."
   
   Bletzer is graduate student at Southern Methodist University.He began excavations five years ago and spends a week in Luis Lopez every summer excavating the unique site..
   
   "The research itself is part of my Ph.D. thesis, but also the beginning of a more long-term research focus that could include other Piro sites as well," he said."In addition I'm analyzing Spanish documents on any info regarding native and Spanish population, and interaction, in the area prior to 1680."
   
   To assist him and his team, Bletzer enlisted the help of Dr. Thomas O'Laughlin, Assistant Director of the Albuquerque Museum.
   ...
   Bletzer describes the latest findings.
   
   "In the large east roomblock two rooms were opened to give an almost complete cross-section of the middle part of this area," he said."Standing at least seven rooms deep, this row of rooms yielded several iron nails in lower floor levels, adding to the already existing evidence that much of the roomblock was built after contact with the Spanish."
   
   According to Bletzer, the overall layout of the roomblock seemed to follow a fairly consistent pattern: inside rooms facing the plaza were used for various activities, above all grinding corn in rows of basin-shaped mealing bins.He said rooms further back were living and storage rooms, and in some places post-holes indicate that the plaza front was covered with ramada-like structures, under which a variety of other activities, such as cooking and roasting, flint-knapping and clay-mixing took place.
   
   "There is also evidence of second-story rooms in the form of collapsed hearths and storage and mealing bins," he said.
   
   Other findings revealed that the plaza area itself was full of pits of all kinds and sizes.Some were apparently storage pits, but others were filled with large accumulations of animal bones, plant remains and broken artifacts.In short, they were trash-pits, Bletzer said.
   ...
   To escape possible punishment for what the missionaries viewed as idolatry, Bletzer hypothesizes that the Piros may have attempted to disguise their native ceremonies by moving them into living quarters in the roomblocks, away from the prying eyes of outsiders.
   
   "Very little in the way of comparative data is available for Piro settlements in general, but there can be no doubt that the pueblo was among the largest in the area," Bletzer said.
   ...
   "There are a lot of myths out there regarding this period, but not much in the way of clear-cut data, be they historical or archaeological," Bletzer said.
   
   In 1598 when Oñate came through the area, there may have been about a dozen large Piro pueblos along the Rio Grande, with several more off the river margins, Bletzer said.By the late 1620s, according to one missionary, there were 14 pueblos, but after that the documents only mention the four mission settlements of Socorro/Pilabó, Senecú, Sevilleta and Alamillo, Bletzer said.

3. 3. Archaeology Southwest - "The Next Generation" - cdarc.org

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   Published on: 8/15/2007   Last Visited: 5/20/2008

   Michael Bletzer will graduate from Southern Methodist University in 2007.His dissertation is titled "Pueblos Without Names": A Case Study of Piro Settlement in Early Colonial New Mexico.