Archaeologists plan meeting on ancients’ mortuary practices

The Journal

The public is invited to attend the next meeting of the San Juan Basin Archaeological Society at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 8, in the Lyceum at the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College. Dawn Mulhern will present “Mortuary Practices of Durango Basketmakers.”

Mulhern is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Coordinator of the Forensic Studies Minor, and NAGPRA Coordinator at Fort Lewis College. She received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Mulhern’s teaching and research interests are in skeletal biology, forensic anthropology, paleopathology, human evolution, and repatriation. She is currently collaborating with Mona Charles on two projects studying the Basketmaker II people from the Durango area, including the Darkmold site and Falls Creek Shelters. Mulhern presents papers annually at national conferences and has taught at workshops in forensic histology at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.