Rate My Professor Patricia Crown

Patricia L. Crown is the Leslie Spier Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, where she served since 1993. Previously, she was Associate Professor at Arizona State University (1992-1993), Assistant Professor at Arizona State University (1991-1992), and Assistant Professor at Southern Methodist University (1985-1990). Crown earned her BA summa cum laude in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, MA in Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1976, and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1981, with a dissertation on variability in ceramic manufacture at the Chodistaas site in east-central Arizona.

Crown's research specializations include Southwest archaeology, ceramic analysis, the archaeology of childhood, and gender in archaeology. She has led significant excavations at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, including the re-excavation of Room 28, which uncovered 174 whole ceramic pots and evidence of the room's burning around AD 1100. Her discoveries include cacao residues indicating ritual chocolate drinks—the first evidence north of the U.S.-Mexico border—and studies on scarlet macaws, water management, and polydactyly symbolism. She has published over 60 articles and books, including editing The House of the Cylinder Jars: Room 28 at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon (University of New Mexico Press, 2020), The Pueblo Bonito Mounds of Chaco Canyon: Material Culture and Fauna (2016), and authoring Ceramics and Ideology: Salado Polychrome Pottery (1994). Key articles feature "Ritual Drinks in the Prehispanic US Southwest and Northwest Mexico" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015) and "Water Management at Pueblo Bonito: Evidence from the National Geographic Society Trenches" (American Antiquity, 2016).

Crown has received major awards such as election to the National Academy of Sciences (2014), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2022), University of New Mexico Presidential Award of Distinction (2015), State of New Mexico Individual Achievement Heritage Preservation Award (2015), and Society for American Archaeology Award for Excellence in Ceramic Research (1994). Her work has had substantial impact on understanding prehistoric exchange networks, ritual practices, and community development in the American Southwest.