Event Details

The Friends of Coronado & Jemez Historic Sites present a lecture by Emily Brown, Ph.D., "Musical Instruments of the Prehispanic Southwest." It is a fact that every known human society created music.  And, the ancestors of today’s Pueblos were no exception. Archaeological excavations in the Four Corners region have revealed a multitude of musical instruments: from whistles to rattles to rasps. This talk presents what we know of the music of Pueblo peoples prior to Spanish contact from the instruments themselves, the context in which they were found, early Spanish and ethnographic accounts and depictions of musicians in rock imagery and pottery.

As an undergraduate, Emily Brown majored in music and anthropology at Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Before following her passion – archaeology - Emily worked for the National Park Service for a few years.  After securing a masters and doctorate degree from Columbia University where she specialized in prehispanic musical instruments from the American Southwest, she briefly returned to the Park Service. In 2005, Emily established her own archaeology consulting firm in Santa Fe.

The lecture is free and takes place at Martha Liebert Public Library in Bernalillo, 124 Calle Malinche Street, behind the Town Hall at 829 Camino del Pueblo.