Birds of the Sun: Scarlet Macaws in the pre-Hispanic U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest

Christopher Schwartz, PhD, Environmental Planning Group and Arizona State University

Exchange is a fundamental human behavior. While today, people rapidly exchange goods and information over great distances, in the past, long-distance exchange necessitated the mobilization of vast networks of interaction. Vibrantly colored scarlet macaws, which are native to the gulf coast of Mexico and Central and South America, are among the most engaging and challenging of objects to have been transported through these networks over hundreds of miles. This talk explores the long-distance acquisition, circulation, and use of scarlet macaws in the pre-Hispanic U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest, including the reasons for procuring these multifaceted animals, their significance in processes of placemaking and widespread social transformations, and their continued importance to descendant communities in this region.

Christopher Schwartz is a senior staff scientist at Environmental Planning Group (EPG) and a visiting researcher at Arizona State University, where he earned his PhD in Anthropology in 2020. He is an anthropological archaeologist who examines the social impacts of long-distance exchange & long-term human-animal relationships in pre-Hispanic North America. He draws on various lines of evidence, including faunal skeletal material, isotopic analyses, material culture, Indigenous perspectives, & spatial analyses, to understand how interregional interaction & human-animal relationships effected large-scale social transformations in the past. He is also the lead editor of Birds of the Sun.

Because of the long holiday weekend, the next virtual meeting of the Pre-Columbian Society of Washington, D.C. will be held Friday, July 8th rather than the first Friday of the month. This meeting is free and open to the public but you must pre-register HERE to attend.