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Patricia Crown

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description Patricia Crown Overview

Patricia Crown is an American archaeologist and professor at the University of New Mexico whose research focuses on the ancestral Puebloan cultures of the American Southwest. She has conducted significant fieldwork in Chaco Canyon, a major ceremonial and political center in northwestern New Mexico. Her discovery of cacao residues in ceramic vessels from Chaco Canyon provided evidence of long-distance trade networks between Mesoamerica and the Southwest. Crown has published extensively on ceramic analysis, ritual practice, and social complexity in the region.

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What does Patricia Crown study at the University of New Mexico?

Patricia Crown is a professor emerita at the University of New Mexico who specializes in Southwest archaeology and ceramic analysis. She has been at UNM since 1993 and has worked on Ancestral Puebloan, Mogollon, and Hohokam archaeology.

What did Patricia Crown discover about cacao at Chaco Canyon?

Working with Jeffrey Hurst, Crown identified evidence of pre-Hispanic cacao in pottery from Chaco Canyon. It was the first confirmed pre-Hispanic cacao found north of the Mexican border.

What is Patricia Crown's connection to Pueblo Bonito?

Crown directed the re-excavation of Room 28 at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon in 2013. The findings were published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2020 as The House of the Cylinder Jars.

Why does Patricia Crown use pottery in her Chaco Canyon research?

Ceramic vessels can preserve organic residues that reveal what people stored or consumed, including cacao. Her work combines ceramic analysis with laboratory testing rather than relying only on the shape or decoration of an object.