The Graves Lecture Series at Chadron State College begins its spring run tonight with CSC Math and Natural Sciences professor Dr Tawny Tibbets speaking on her work as a geo-archaeologist among Mayan ruins in Central America.
The program is free and open to the public. It begins at 7:00 in the Chicoine Atrium of the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center at Chadron State.
Tibbets has worked dig sites in Belize and says granite played a major role in the average Mayan household.
She’ll talk about that and about how modern technology, including hand-held x-ray units, which she tongue-in-cheek calls ray guns, are changing the understanding of how the Mayans and other cultures produced and exchanged stone tools.
Tibbets joined the CSC faculty in 2019 and is also director of the school’s Lois Veath Planetarium. She continues to work with fellow scientists in Belize and Bolivia as a geo-archaeologist.