Fishing in the Desert

Instructor: Joan Schneider, PhD
ABF Members $35, Nonmembers $45

Native peoples of the Colorado Desert and Lower Colorado River were fisher-folks when opportunities arose. Learn the techniques used to catch fish, prepare it, and transport it. This one-day class will include 2 hours of classroom information and a visit to at least two archaeological sites where the remains of fishing structures and fish camps can be seen today.

Bring lunch, good walking shoes, hats, sunscreen, and water. We will be visiting locations both within and outside ABDSP, including short walks from vehicles. Meet at Colorado Desert District Headquarters Begole Archaeological Research Center in Borrego Springs. 4x4 vehicles are preferred.

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Joan S. Schneider, Ph.D. has extensive experience in the archaeology of the Colorado and Mojave deserts. Her particular research interests focus on geoarchaeology as well as settlement patterns and subsistence practices of early peoples of arid lands. She is especially interested in every day tasks of women as they are expressed in the prehistoric archaeological record as well as the archaeology and anthropology of stone quarries and the people who worked them. Also considered an expert on the archaeology of the desert tortoise, she has published in international, national, regional, and local professional journals. Since 1987, she has taught classes at the Desert Study Center at Zzyzx and, since 2001 has been an Associate State Archaeologist in the Colorado Desert District of California State Parks.