The San Juan Basin Archaeological Society invites the public to a presentation. At 6:30 we will have social time in the CSWS foyer. Alfred Berry, a third-generation land surveyor will give a talk titled "Old School Archaeological Mapping of Mesa Verde".

Alfred Berry, (Alf) is a third-generation land surveyor with a rich survey and mapping history. His family has been involved with projects as small as defining property lines between neighbors who don’t get along up to National Geographic maps of Mount Everest. The GPS technology that we all use to get to a coffee shop was due to a family member in the room.

His grandfather, Ralph W. Berry, led the first team to map Mesa Verde National Park in 1910. The park was created in 1906 but there were few maps of the area. Ralph and his team of eight and a cook undertook the extremely difficult task of mapping the mesa with the technology of that time. This was archeological mapping at its best.

Alf has been the benefactor of having a grandfather, two uncles, and two brothers involved in mapping, either at a local or global scale. His personal archaeological projects include mapping Mayan sites in Belize and the Yucatan as well as Shoshone sites in Wyoming.

His understanding of the technological changes since 1910, and how mapping is done in our current world are light years ahead of the technology of the time. His grandfather spent an entire summer with a crew of eight mapping the mesa. Today’s technology could give the same level of detail in about 2 hours