Southwest Archaeology Today for Dec 31, 2007

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

– Moving National Park Service Employees in Santa Fe Causing Controversy: National Park Service employees and retirees are angry about a plan to move the agency’s Santa Fe staff to a historical building on Old Santa Fe Trail. Placing too many employees in the building “is no less than vandalism,” J.W. “Bill” Wade, chairman of the executive council of the Coalition of Retired National Park Service Employees, wrote to National Park Service Director Mary Bomar.
http://www.lcsun-news.com/centennial/ci_7811117

– Vandalism at San Xavier Shrine: Two long-standing religious statues that graced the grotto at Mission San Xavier del Bac were smashed last week by a man police found yelling on the hillside, a Tohono O’odham police spokesman said.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/local/72709.php

– Realtor and Paleontologists Join in Familiar Conflict over Development North of Las Vegas: Local real estate agent Sandy Croteau made a somewhat surprising pitch as she traipsed through a vacant, gravel-filled wash: She wants to spare the expanse from home developers. Trying to halt this city’s growth may be a Sisyphean task, but Croteau, 60, is counting on help from some sun-worn mammoth bones. About 10,000 bison, camel and mammoth fossils have been unearthed in recent years in a nearly 13,000-acre ribbon of the Upper Las Vegas Wash just south of Desert National Wildlife Refuge. And with builders champing to get at the property, the federal Bureau of Land Management must figure out how much of the land to preserve.
http://www.cdarc.org/page/dnqd – Los Angeles Times

– Mesoamerican Find May Push Back Date for the Beginning of the Aztec Empire: Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an 800-year-old Aztec pyramid in the heart of the Mexican capital that could show the ancient city is at least a century older than previously thought.Mexican archaeologists found the ruins, which are about 36 feet (11 metres) high, in the central Tlatelolco area, once a major religious and political centre for the Aztec elite.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN2742810220071228