The University of Arizona Press
July 14, 2026
Patricia A. Gilman, coauthor of Mimbres Far From the Heartland: Identity at the Powers Ranch Site of East-Central Arizona, spoke as part of the Tumamoc Author Series.
In this Southwest Center video of the event, Gilman discusses the Mimbres culture and Powers Ranch site on the Gila River near Duncan, Arizona. The talk discusses the difference between Mimbres in the heartland (the Mimbres Valley) versus Mimbres outside the heartland, and why these communities aren’t peripheral, but their own local versions.
Reflecting on the themes of identity and archaeology, Gilman said, “One of the problems that I think we run into in cultural identity with prehistoric cultures. . . is that we identify them by their material culture. So our branch, the decorated wear is pretty much all embrace pottery. . . So, yes, we are in a territory where most of the people are making that pottery, but is that how they would actually identify themselves? So that was [what] one of our research questions was, are these people Mimbres?”
The event was presented by Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, The University of Arizona Press, and The Southwest Center.
Patricia A. Gilman has done archaeological research in the Mimbres region of New Mexico and Arizona for more than fifty years. One of her research interests is the role of small Mimbres Classic sites beyond the Mimbres Valley. She co-authored Mimbres Life and Society: The Mattocks Site of Southwestern New Mexico and co-edited Mimbres Society and New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology. Dr. Gilman retired from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma.
