Artifacts Part of San Juan Festivities

Jeff Harrison
June 20, 2000


WHAT:El Dia de San Juan
WHEN:Saturday, June 24, 4-9 p.m.
WHERE:West Congress Street at the Santa Cruz River
CONTACT: Diana Hadley, Arizona State Museum, 621-6271, or e-mail hadleyd@u.arizona.edu

El Dia de San Juan is traditionally the start of the summer monsoon season in Tucson. In addition to the traditional blessing and procession, the charros and escaramuzas on horseback, the music and the other festivities, the Arizona State Museum will have a display of some of the cultural materials excavated from the old mission site at the foot of Sentinel Peak (now A Mountain), which is now the center of the Rio Nuevo project.

The Arizona State Museum has been one of the lynchpins in efforts to protect what was once a thriving community at this site. Starting in 1949 ASM archaeologists recovered materials and identified building foundations at Rio Nuevo. The site has been home to continuous human habitations for 3,000 years, in large part because the geology at the south end of Sentinel Peak - A Mountain created a series of shallow ponds lined with cottonwoods and mesquites that was home first to archaic settlers, then later to Hohokam and Piman Indians and still later to a series of Indian and non-Indian immigrants.

Share

Resources for the media