U of A College of Social & Behavioral Sciences presents

Four University of Arizona professors will examine the complex and varied ways that humans and animals interact and change one another in this year’s Downtown Lecture Series. Topics include surprising discoveries about the canine mind; how indigenous hunters treated bison as partners; the tradition of harvesting herring and challenges of climate change; and how the Navajo view horses as healers and educators.

María Nieves Zedeño

Our understanding of human-bison interactions – whether through hunting, consuming, trading, sacrificing, exterminating, or nursing from the brink of extinction – has generally portrayed humans as the central force in the history of this great American mammal. In contrast, Native American Plains hunters situate bison at the center of a web of natural, social, and spiritual connections with the world. María Nieves Zedeño combines traditional knowledge and scientific archaeology to explore how, for millennia, indigenous hunters in North America  treated bison as powerful persons and partners who shaped every aspect of human life.

About the Speaker

María Nieves Zedeño is Associate Research Professor in the UA School of Anthropology. She has spent 15 years working with Blackfoot hunters and religious leaders on archaeological projects to uncover the cultural landscape of bison hunting. Her research is woven into contemporary efforts to combine tradition and state-of-art range ecology in the management of Blackfeet tribal bison herds.

Admission

Free admission will be first come, first served. Tickets are not required.
Doors open at 6 p.m.