Southwest Archaeology Today for Sept 5, 2006

Archaeology Making the News – A Service of the Center for Desert Archaeology

– Archaeological Sciences of the Americas Symposium, September 13-16 in Tucson: This biennial symposium will be held this year at the University of Arizona’s USS Arizona Memorial Union on Sept. 13-16. It will focus on studies, techniques, and approaches that emphasize the analysis and interpretation of prehistoric and historic materials, human cultures and ecology. Six major themes to be represented include geoarchaeology, conservation studies and ephemeral remains, spatial analysis and remote sensing, chronometry, human-environmental interaction, and material culture studies. For more info go to asas06.ltc.arizona.edu or contact R. Emerson Howell (rhowell@email.arizona.edu) or AJ Vonarx (ajvonarx@email.arizona.edu).
The regular registration fee for the ASAS 2006 conference is $60 for students and $100 for others to attend the entire conference, or $40 per single day. However, since Old Pueblo is a conference sponsor, conference organizers are allowing 2 or 3 Old Pueblo staff or volunteers attend the conference for free. This offer is first come-first served, so please contact Allen Dart as soon as possible at Tucson telephone no. 798-1201 or adart@oldpueblo.org and send your completed conference registration form to Allen so he can get your name and registration form in to the organizers before their deadline of next Wednesday, Sept 6. (Thanks to Allen Dart!)

– Phoenix Begins Examination of Historic Preservation and Hispanic Culture:Leaders in Phoenix are working to preserve historic sites, specifically sites with importance to the Latino community. KJZZ’s Marcos Najera takes a look at one building in South Phoenix slated for preservation.
http://kjzz.org/news/arizona/archives/200608/chavez

– Smithsonian Begins to Place Photographic Collections Online: Spread across the Smithsonian’s 18 museums, nine research centers and the National Zoo are 13 million photographs. In the hallways and laboratories are about 700 collections of photos. Harnessing them into a form that gives researchers and the public some access has long been a goal for Smithsonian caretakers. But, like a lot of things at the Smithsonian, you had to know where to go to find what you were looking for. Today, the Smithsonian Photography Initiative (SPI) is launching an electronic means of looking at a small part of this vast collection. A website, http://www.spi.si.edu, will provide access to 1,800 digital images, the work of 100 photographers, who used 50 different processes.
http://www.startribune.com/389/story/651024.html
http://www.spi.si.edu

– Utah Struggles to Stop Looting at Canyon of the Ancients: Canyons Of The Ancients National Monument, Colo. — Linda Farnsworth picked her way across a field of loose rocks, down a steep slope under the overhang of sandstone cliffs. The archeologist stopped at the remains of a low stone retaining wall and searched briefly until she found the series of backfilled holes — where looters had rooted around a remote kiva site for highly prized black and white Anasazi pots, tools and other prehistoric objects.
http://tinyurl.com/jd7c8 – Casper Tribune

– Environmental Legacy of Route 66: The land beneath what was once the nation’s most famous thoroughfare is tainted with decades-old gasoline, the insidious footprint of filling stations as long gone now as Route 66’s heyday. The ghosts of the hundreds of gas stations that used to fill up Fords and Chevys cruising between Chicago and Los Angeles haunt America’s most iconic road and the small towns all along it.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0903route66plan0903.html

– Honeybee Village & Urban Sprawl: It’s a 1,500-year-old treasure on a ridge a few yards off a busy thoroughfare in the foothills of the Tortolita Mountains. But soon, much of what modern archaeologists call Honey Bee Village – ruins of prehistoric Hohokam pit houses, plazas and ball courts – will become an upscale shopping plaza. Only about a fourth of the village, some 13 acres containing an estimated 400 pit houses, will be preserved, said Henry D. Wallace, project manager of the archeological dig, under way since April 17.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/24869.php

– AAHS Annual Book Sale is Set for Saturday, Oct 21st. The Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society announce its annual used book sale. The book sale is made possible by the many generous donations of books, journals, and other printed materials to the Society by members, the public, and scholars. The large collection available for this sale represents a wide variety of topics and geographical interests with a special emphasis on the anthropology, archaeology, and history of the Southwest United States. There are many hard-to-find anthropological titles in an individually, yet reasonably, priced section. General book prices start at $1. Proceeds from the event help support and benefit the Arizona State Museum Library. Admission is free. When: Saturday, October 21, 2006, 8am – 1pm. AAHS and ASM members admitted at 8 am. General public admitted at 9 am. Where: Arizona State Museum, South Building (corner of Park Ave. and University Blvd.)