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"Colonization at the Speed of Light: An Archaeological Study of Communication Technology and the Settlement of the American West" is the final talk in the Barbed Wire Fence Telephone II speaker series.

Professor Sam Duwe from the University of Oklahoma says: this talk addresses the intersections between anthropology, history, and technology to explore how the development of two-way communication networks in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries were tied to the American colonization of the American Southwest. While this takes many forms (railroads/telegraph, telephones, radio), I specifically focus here on one brief but dramatic event: the Geronimo Campaign of 1886. I am currently examining the network of heliographs (sun-mirror signaling) employed by the U.S. Army in southeastern Arizona to aid in capturing the Apache leader. Through a synthesis of archaeological material, archival records, and GIS analysis I seek to virtually reconstruct this network to address its debated effectiveness in warfare as well as begin to broach how the Apache conceptualized, responded, and adapted to a novel network of surveillance.

Join us on Monday September 23 at 12pm our time (UTC-6). This one is online-only so please contact mediaarchaeology@colorado.edu for Zoom info (or watch on Twitch)!