Tori Meyers: Hi everyone at San Juan Regional and thanks for being there when we have an accident or need care at the hospital. We should all appreciate our healthcare workers more than our behavior indicates. I am Tori Myers, and I am the Executive Director of Salmon Ruins Museum. I have been an archaeologist working in this region for more than 20 years, and my specialty in Archaeology is identification of pottery, so that comes in handy in the Southwest where pottery has been made and used for close to 2,000 years.

The Salmon Ruins Museum is located in Bloomfield and is right on Highway 64. There's no dirt road or bad conditions to get there, and you can't get lost because we have signs. Our official name is the San Juan County Museum Association because we began as the local amateur archaeological club, which was called the San Juan Archaeological Society. This group was started in the 1950s, or even earlier, and eventually developed into a formal non-profit organization in the 1960s, and was later engaged to ensure that the Salmon Family Homestead was being used for educational outreach to the community.

The family members were some of the earliest homesteaders in Bloomfield. They operated a ferry that helped other homesteaders cross the San Juan River, as well as a general store in town. And from the house that is part of our facility, they operated a cattle ranch with a large fruit orchard, so they were involved in a lot of the historic activities between the 1870s and the early 1900s in this area. Their name is spelled S-A-L-M-O-N, which most people pronounce salmon like the fish, but the family members all use the L, so it is actually Solman, not salmon. The homestead buildings are right next to a gigantic prehistoric village. And the family is unique in the region because they wanted to protect the ruins rather than exploit them by selling artifacts or allow other people to destroy the ruins while searching for artifacts. This is extremely rare in the western states, where especially during the years of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, many farming families were only able to survive by allowing Archaeology on their property to be destroyed.

The Salmon family wanted someone who would study and explain the prehistoric site to work on it. So in the 1960s, they worked with San Juan County officials to purchase the site and the homestead with the expressed intention of making both areas into a learning experience for residents of the future to enjoy. The San Juan County Museum Association was engaged to organize that research and create a museum to explain it. Excavation of almost a third of the site took place between 1970 and '78 by Archaeology students from Eastern New Mexico University. At the time, it was the first excavation project in North America to attempt to apply the brand new scientific approach to studying archaeology to a prehistoric village, and both the Salmon Ruins site and the town of Bloomfield were world famous because of it. Students and visitors came to participate or visit from all around the world during that time. And the project was featured regularly in major magazines and news stories. The artifacts and data recovered during those projects remains available for students and researchers to use, and we are always excited to participate in ongoing research.

Modern archaeological studies at Salmon Ruins have confirmed that the structure was built by architects from Chaco Canyon around 1080 and was lived in as a Chacoan outlier village by up to 250 people through the 1280s. In this region, these people have been known for over 150 years as Anasazi, and they are the prehistoric ancestors of the modern day Pueblo tribes. So, you might hear them called prehistoric Pueblo. There are many of these groups who developed sophisticated methods of agriculture and social organization across the entire Southwest between the 600s and the 1300s. These groups have regional characteristics that are distinctive, so that as observers and researchers, we can identify unique construction techniques, crops being grown, pottery styles or resources, and ways to know what is local and what is not. All of these groups were interacting and trading with each other. And all of them eventually changed and adapted into the historic pueblos after moving away from the area. People from this culture who lived in Chaco and outlier villages like Salmon Ruins appear to be involved in what is going on from Chaco Canyon. But this region is called the Middle San Juan Group. The nearby river access helped the people who lived at Salmon Ruins to be successful through three severe droughts in the 1100s and 1200s. But eventually, the many difficulties caused by the droughts also made them leave around 1288. Some of the modern Pueblo tribes believe that Salmon Ruins is identified in their beliefs and traditions as a village where their people once lived, although they have different names for it in their own languages.

Today, when you visit the Salmon Ruins Museum, you can walk through the prehistoric village and see some of the excavated areas as well as parts that are still covered with rubble and windblown sand. You can visit the buildings that make up the Salmon Homestead, including the house, the carriage house, the root cellar, and the bunk house. Some of the apricot and apple trees are still growing in the orchard. We also have recreated houses and outdoor displays that represent the many time periods and cultures who never lived on our grounds, but help to make sense of how the landscape has been used, known as Heritage Park.

Most people do not know that this region has been inhabited and used by people since the end of the Ice Age. At our elevation, the glaciers would have been melting and people would have been living a nomadic lifestyle all across the region by 15,000 years ago. Nomadic family groups begin to experiment with plants about 3,000 years ago, creating what is called the basketmaker period, a time of developing new ideas and technologies that eventually result in people no longer being nomadic. Basketmaker cultures transition into Anasazi or prehistoric Pueblo groups at whatever time that they are able to produce enough food from farming to stay in the same village during the winter season. This usually happens sometime between the 600s and 800s. Severe recurring droughts that cause people to move to other regions and abandon their villages begin around 1000 and continue through about 1350, causing the inhabitants of all the southwestern regions to move to a new location and establish new villages during that time.

By the 1400s, Nomadic family groups who speak a totally unrelated Athabascan language have started to move into the region. These groups originated in Canada and the Northern Plains. Once they get here, the Athabaskans adapt and become the ancestors of the Navajo and Apache groups. Spanish explorers begin to travel through the region in the mid-1500s, leaving behind pieces of metal armor. We have a collection of some of this armor that was found near Aztec. Spanish families began to live in Largo Canyon and other nearby canyons, starting in the early 1700s. New Mexico was opened for American Homesteaders in 1873, leading to construction of the railroads, the establishment of reservation boundaries and widespread trading posts across the area long before New Mexico became a state officially in 1912.

I hope you'll bring your friends and family as well as any out of town visitors to visit Salmon Ruins whenever you have a chance. Our outdoor exhibits include the archaeological site, the Salmon Homestead, and Heritage Park. Our indoor exhibits are focused mainly on artifacts and accurate interpretation of the culture from the excavations of the site, but also include donations from local families, special displays related to a theme, or examples of recent research that we think visitors will find interesting.

We have a gift shop that includes a wide selection of locally made crafts, art, and jewelry that is all made by Native American artists, unique T-shirts and books, gifts, and specialty items. We offer tours of nearby locations that are conducted by one of our professional archaeologists and take you and your friends to interesting places that you might not be aware of or able to drive to yourself.

Our location is unique because we don't get funding from the federal or state governments. As a private non-profit, we have to generate all of our own funding. So, your entry fee, shopping in the gift shop, and supporting our educational tour programs are a major part of how we do that. We also operate an archaeological consulting firm that conducts surveys for companies who want to construct something and help them adjust their project so that it can go forward, but also avoid damaging archaeological sites out on the landscape.

This work is essential to helping energy and construction companies continue to work, while also preserving evidence of local people and their activities for the past 15,000 years. We also want to share some exciting information with you about upcoming events. On December 7th, we will be hosting our annual Arts and Crafts Fair from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. This is the 35th Anniversary of this fundraiser for the Salmon Ruins Museum, and we are really proud of being one of the longest running craft fairs in the area. We have 91 vendors this year, and many of them are new to our show. This show has grown so big over the past 35 years that now we have to hold it at McGee Park. This is the building that has sewing, quilting, art, and photography during the County Fair. The Craft Fair is a great way to find something special and unique for people you want to buy gifts for every year, and we only allow handmade and one of a kind items. Please plan to come and shop on December 7th at McGee Park. It costs $1 per person to get in and you might win a door prize. There will also be hot food available from the kitchen, which is done as a fundraiser for a different local non-profit, the Northwest New Mexico Bowling Association.

In addition to funding support by activities like our Craft Fair, we also take volunteers throughout the year who are interested in doing something to help the museum. There are numerous tasks that volunteers could do, from physical labor and construction, to gardening, to data entry. And we try to find something that each person will enjoy that is also a task that we really need. Most important currently is data entry and editing of previous work to make sure it is correct. Volunteers can set a schedule that fits into their other activities and work schedule. Even if you can't volunteer, if you know someone who is looking for an opportunity to do so, make sure you tell them about us.

We also organize and manage the Site Stewards Program. The Site Stewards are people who enjoy exploring the area and visiting all kinds of archaeological sites and who want to help protect those sites from vandalism, pothunting, graffiti, or damage from recreational vehicles. Most of the land around us is open to the public with no protection of any kind for the rock art and surface archaeology that might be found there. Hopefully, most people are careful when they hike and camp, but not everyone is. Natural erosion from weather can also affect rock art and sites. The Site Stewards Program matches up volunteers with sites that have already experienced damage or vandalism in the past so that someone can visit and document any problems before the whole site is destroyed. Currently, we have 57 stewards who take care of 240 endangered sites in the area. Training for the site stewards takes place several times a year at Salmon Ruins. So, go ahead and contact us if you think you might be interested in the program.

I hope you all enjoyed my talk, and I hope we will see you here for a visit sometime soon. You can email me from our website, salmonruins.com and see photos and information about events and activities and tours all there or call us at 505-632-2013 or just stop by sometime and talk to us. Have a great day, and bye!