Digging in the dirt with Linda Cordell

Sep. 9—details

—Linda S. Cordell: Innovating Southwest Archaeology

—Panel discussion with Maxine McBrinn and Deborah Huntley

—1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 11

—Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, 710 Camino Lejo

—Free; 505-476-1269, indianartsandculture.org

The Ceramic Slumber Party might sound like a fun time with friends, but this club eschews pillow fights and pajamas to advance research into pottery from the Pueblo IV period (circa 1275-1425) of the Eastern Pueblo region of the Southwest.

The Ceramic Slumber Party was an informal group that grew organically from renowned archaeologist Linda S. Cordell's (1943-2013) invitations to her colleagues to join her on summer ventures to archaeological sites along the Rio Grande and on visits to research collections to broaden their knowledge base about the region.

"Each spring I would receive an email inviting several colleagues to meet her in Santa Fe on a specified date," writes contributing author Judith Habicht-Mauche, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in Linda S. Cordell: Innovating Southwest Archaeology (Museum of New Mexico Press, 176 pages, $45). "There was usually no discussion about whether that date was convenient or not. But, well, when Linda told you to show up somewhere, you showed up."

The new book is the first comprehensive treatment of Cordell, an influential archaeologist, museum specialist, author, and professor whose life's work was the study of Southwestern archaeology, particularly the northern Rio Grande region.

"She wrote the book on Southwest archaeology," says Deborah Huntley, principal archaeologist for the Southwest region at Tetra Tech, Inc. in Colorado. "Even when she retired, she was like, 'OK. Here's this big question. Let's all get together and talk about it.' You don't often get the chance to sit down with people and completely nerd out about research."

Huntley and Maxine McBrinn, a former curator of archaeology at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) in Santa Fe, co-edited the book, which includes essays by more than two dozen established Southwest archaeologists, written in memory of Cordell, including artist and archaeologist Charles Carrillo, retired MIAC assistant archaeology curator Dody Fugate, and Suzanne Eckert, head of collections at the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson.

And, among the heartfelt contributions, which at their most academic are still accessible for the general reader, is a sense of Cordell as an example of someone who was as comfortable in the field as she was in academic settings. She delighted in considering broad theories about Southwest archaeology and how specialized research fit into developing paradigms.

"She was a big picture person, but she definitely knew the details too, and I don't know how she pulled it off," says Huntley, who joins McBrinn for a 1 p.m. panel discussion on Cordell on Sunday, Sept. 11, at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. "She knew everything — and not just about the Southwest. She had her finger on the pulse of what was going on in the archaeology world in a lot of different places."

And Huntley knew from experience that Cordell was unusually prescient at anticipating trends. These she gleaned from going to the source: younger generations of archaeologists and anthropologists.

About a year after graduating from the University of Colorado in 1991, Huntley met the woman who would become a mentor, colleague, and friend at a Society for American Archaeology meeting, where Cordell was doing a roundtable.

Pull Quote

"I was a first-year graduate student, and she was famous. I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I'm at the table with Linda Cordell.' So, I introduced myself, and she had read my honor's thesis that I did at the University of Colorado. I was just really surprised. Why would that even be on her radar?"

Cordell was born in New York City to Harry Seinfeld, a pharmacist, and Evelyn S. Kessler, a professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida. Cordell graduated with honors and distinction from George Washington University in 1965. While still an undergraduate student, she joined fellow students on a cross-country trip to attend Florence Hawley Ellis' University of New Mexico field school at the Ancestral Pueblo site of Sapawe near El Rito, New Mexico. At the time, it was one of few archeology field schools that would admit women.

Earning a master's from the University of Oregon in 1967, where her focus was on lithic (stone) analysis, Cordell went on to work as an innovator in the field, even exploring the early use of computers for simulations, and she was an early proponent of remote sensing technology. But, as McBrinn writes in her introductory essay "Linda Cordell: Her Life and Legacy," "She was not a gadget person, though, and reserved enthusiasm until the utility of a new technology was obvious."

After completing a Ph.D. at the University of California in 1972, Cordell spent years in academic research and as an instructor at the University of New Mexico, where she remained until 1987 when she accepted a position at the California Academy of Sciences, serving as Irvine Curator and Chair of the Anthropology Department until 1993. Her final roles were as Professor of Anthropology and Director of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in Boulder.

Her passion for archaeology lasted up until the moment of her death. She died in Santa Fe in 2013 at her living room table, while preparing for a symposium on the preservation of the Galisteo Basin, which was to be presented at the New Mexico History Museum.

"Linda's death reverberated through the archaeological community for a number of reasons," writes McBrinn, who describes Cordell's absence that year at an annual meeting of the Society of American Archaeology. "Linda had always been an enthusiastic attendee, using the opportunity to learn about new research and to strengthen her ties to an extensive network of peers and younger scholars. Suddenly, she was not there, and many noticed and mourned her absence."

Cordell's area of interest was the pre-Columbian history of the Southwestern United States. The book presents a number of essays based around memories of projects, some of which Cordell played a central role in developing and others that were inspired by her research and ideas but carried out by others.

Huntley worked with Cordell on a project for the first time in the mid-1990s: an excavation at Hummingbird Pueblo in New Mexico's Rio Puerco Valley. It was where she met McBrinn.

"It was a joint project between University of Colorado, Southern Methodist University, and Arizona State University, where I was a grad student along with my colleague, Suzanne Eckert," Huntley says. "Max, Suzanne, and I were the grad students who kind of got put in charge. Linda and a couple of other professors were ultimately in charge. Without going into a lot of details, that was an extremely difficult and stressful project. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

"Linda came out one day, and she'd heard a bunch of rumors that things weren't happening, and she was furious at me and my colleague. I just remember thinking, 'Oh my gosh, Linda Cordell's mad at me. I guess that's the end of my career.'"

But, after working things out with her mentor, Huntley and Cordell had a stronger relationship.

"We did a lot of informal collaboration, I would say. Linda was a huge supporter of the Goat Spring Pueblo project that Suzanne and I run and would come out to the field and talk to our students about pottery and how to interpret the site."

Cordell's influence extended into numerous areas of anthropology and archaeology in the Southwest, and, through mentorship and unwavering support for younger generations, she expanded the role of women in the field. "When she passed away, there was a New Mexico archaeology Listserv and the tributes that flowed in were so numerous," McBrinn told Pasatiempo. "People couldn't wait to tell their stories."

Hence, Linda S. Cordell: Innovating Southwest Archaeology came about quickly over the course of the pandemic. Huntley and McBrinn's vision for the book was an informative structure that elucidated the importance of Cordell's research while providing readers with a portrait of the archaeologist.

"She was so interested in making sure that everyday people could understand the work," says McBrinn, who co-authored Archaeology of the Southwest (third edition, Routledge, 368 pages, 2012) with Cordell. Huntley and McBrinn's own collaboration was developed in the spirit through which Cordell imparted her own enthusiasm for archaeology.

"After she retired, she spent her time providing service to the profession," McBrinn says. "She became a conduit for letting people know about each other's work."