Date:
4/6/2006
Contact: Wendel Sloan at 505.562.2253
PORTALES—Dr. Virginia L. Butler, associate professor of anthropology at Portland State University, will be the guest speaker at the 7th Annual Cynthia Irwin-Williams Lecture at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 13, in Room 112 of the Jack Williamson Liberal Arts Building.
Her topic will be "Where Have All the Native Fish Gone?" The presentation is free and open to the public.
Butler's primary interest is zooarchaeology, the study of animal remains from archaeological sites. She draws on evolutionary ecology to study predatory-prey interactions, and considers human demography, technological change and independent changes in paleoenvironments that affect prey abundance.
Most recently, she has compiled 10,000-year fish records in the Columbia River system and Owens Valley, Calif. Her work shows ways that ancient animal records contribute to conservation biology, which, in her opinion, often operates with limited knowledge of long-term biotic history.
The presentation is sponsored by ENMU's Department of Anthropology and Applied Archaeology, Mu Alpha Nu Anthropology Club, and the Sigma Xi Science Society.
For more information, call David Batten at 505.562.2750, or Jason Adams at 304.283.2811.