Support Building for Bears Ears Monument Declaration

Inter-Tribal Coalition Calls for New National Monument in Southeast Utah
A coalition of Tribal Nations presented a proposal to the Obama Administration for a 1.9 million area National Monument in southern Utah. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition (comprising the Hopi, Navajo, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute, and Zuni Tribes) came into being July 2015 with the aim of preserving the Bears Ears region, which includes its titular Bears Ears buttes as well as over 100,000 archaeological and cultural sites. The region has a history of vandalism and raiding, and faces pressures for oil, gas, and potash extraction. http://bit.ly/1VZfv5n – NEWWEST

Jim Enote Argues for the Creation of a Bears Ears National Monument
How many times have native peoples recommended the inclusion of long-term traditional knowledge as the primary rationale for managing and monitoring of federal lands? Did we mention our cultural structures are closely linked to environmental conditions? Modern natural resource management has good intentions but the search for best practices has not satisfactorily included constructive and practical native approaches and values. The effort by five tribes to establish a new national monument west of the Four Corners region is worthy of our attention. http://bit.ly/1LDH2Ih – Indian Country Today

Video Link – Amazing Images of Cedar Mesa Perishables
A tip o’ the hat from Archaeology Southwest to our preservation heroes Laurie Webster and Paul Stavast.
http://bit.ly/1hLVDoJ – YouTube

Utah School Trust Lands and Friends of Cedar Mesa Join Forces to Preserve Cave Towers
Two groups that could be at odds with one another instead paired up in a stewardship project aimed at protecting one of the most famous archaeological sites in Utah. The School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, owner of the land that hosts the Cave Towers site, worked with Friends of Cedar Mesa in a daylong improvement project at Cave Towers, located about 20 miles south of Blanding. http://bit.ly/1MxrnXl – Deseret News

An Informed Community Is a Strong Community—and Your Support Will Make It Stronger
Did you realize that, by reading Southwest Archaeology Today each week, you are a member of a growing community of readers? Nearly 3,000 strong, our community values the places of the past, and we stay informed because of our commitment to the past. I am proud of how we raise our voices on behalf of the past’s special places. Today, I hope you’ll join me for another call to action: support SAT. A donation of any amount will help ensure that SAT remains ad-free and in your inbox for another year. A gift of $35 or more will entitle you to the benefits of membership with Archaeology Southwest. Please, donate today to keep our SAT community growing and strong. http://bit.ly/1OCgKbT – Archaeology Southwest

Lekson Presents a Model of a More Connected Ancient America, with Chaco and Cahokia as Outlying Communities of Mesoamerican Culture
Modern borders have skewed how ancient civilizations are interpreted, says Steve Lekson, a University of Colorado archaeologist. Great North American civilizations from 1,000 years ago, including Chaco and Cahokia near St. Louis, were outliers of a vast Mesoamerican empire in southern Mexico. “Forget the international border, it was all one world,” he said during a presentation at the Sunflower Theatre in Cortez. “After the U.S.-Mexican war in 1848, the attitude here was that these were our ruins with no connection to the south. That is absurd.” http://bit.ly/1LYgYcJ – Cortez Journal

Grad Student Fights for Preservation and Public Access in Archaeology – A Profile of Ben Bellorado
If you have visited a national park recently and seen artifacts in their original setting, you may have a UA graduate student to thank. Ben Bellorado, a UA anthropology graduate student, researches building decorations in archaeological sites and works with land managers to keep these sites open to the public. Bellorado received funding from the Canyonlands Natural History Association to survey remarkably well-preserved archaeological sites in southeastern Utah. Bellorado’s sites are in areas owned by the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, and are fully open for the public to explore. http://bit.ly/1kgWhg4  – Arizona Daily Wildcat

Crow Canyon and Washington State University Launch Village Ecodynamics Project Website
The Village Ecodynamics Project (VEP) is a multidisciplinary collaboration among researchers at several different institutions to study the interaction between Pueblo Indian people and their environment over more than a thousand years, beginning in A.D. 600. The VEP includes two study areas, one in southwestern Colorado and the other in northern New Mexico. Funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) grants awarded to Washington State University, the VEP employs an innovative approach to reconstructing the human past and exploring its relevance for today’s world. http://bit.ly/1LvRuOy – Crow Canyon Archaeological Center

Reminder – Oblique Views Opens on October 25 in Santa Fe
Aerial photographer Adriel Heisey followed the ghostly shadow of Charles Lindbergh’s biplane to tell the story of the Southwest. Opening at Santa Fe’s Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, “Oblique Views: Archaeology, Photography and Time” pairs 17 of the 1929 photographs taken by Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh with Heisey’s contemporary images, exposing changes in the landscape, cliffs, ruins, rivers and even footpaths across 86 years of time. The exhibition marks the first time the images have appeared side by side. http://bit.ly/1OCvRSE – Albuquerque Journal

Audio Link – A Zuni Perspective on the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act
The Native American Graves and Repatriation Act was enacted 25 years ago to help bring human remains and sacred objects back to the tribes to who they are affiliated with. KSJD’s Tom Yoder talks with Dan Simplicio, a Zuni tribal member and Cultural Specialist at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, about his views on NAGPRA, how it has been problematic for the Zuni tribe, and what needs to change.
http://bit.ly/1Xdf2Pt – KSJD.Org

Learn More about Native American Pottery and Ceramic Traditions at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument
Casa Grande Ruins National Monument is featuring pottery makers Ron Carlos and Jacob Butler on Sunday, November 15 from 9 am until 4:30 pm.  “The skill and patience required in making container art in the traditional Native American style takes years of study and practice to master” said park Superintendent Karl Pierce.  “This weekend we will feature two talented artisans who will share their art, methods of creating that art, and stories of how they came to value their heritage through their art.” Directions and additional information are available on the Monument’s website, http://www.nps.gov/cagr,  or you may call (520) 723-3172.

School of Advanced Research and University of New Mexico Announce New Publishing Partnership
The School for Advanced Research (SAR) Press and University of New Mexico Press are pleased to announce a publishing alliance that will renew a business relationship dating back to the 1930s. Effective immediately, UNM Press is the distributor of SAR Press’s 187 existing titles. http://bit.ly/1KhZjpd – School for Advanced Research

Archaeology Expo Planning Meeting
The 2016 Archaeology Expo will be held in conjunction with Coolidge Cotton Days on Saturday, March 5, 2016 at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument from 9 am to 4 pm and is a FREE event. The National Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2016 and is the host for this year’s Expo. If you are interesting in helping or participating at this year’s Expo, please feel free to join our planning meeting at 10 am on Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at Arizona State Parks at 1300 W. Washington Street in Phoenix. All are invited to attend. Planning meetings will occur once a month until March and alternate between Arizona State Parks headquarters in Phoenix and the Monument. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Kris Dobschuetz at kd2@azstateparks.gov or 602-542-7141.

Call for Arizona Archaeological Activities within the Month of March – Due November 15, 2015
March is Archaeology and Heritage Awareness Month. Each year the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office puts out a call for organizations that plan to conduct archaeological activities for the public in March of 2016 – such as tours, presentations, lectures, demonstrations to send their information to SHPO. The SHPO then compiles the information into a Listing of Events Brochure which is organized by location (central, southern, northern, etc) and then by date. In early January, these brochures are printed and distributed thorough the state to let people know about these wonderful events. If you have an event(s) that you would like to be in the booklet, please fill out the Listing of Events Form that can be found at www.azstateparks.com/archy. The forms are due by November 15, 2015 to be included in the 2016 Archaeology Listing of Events Brochure. Any questions, please feel free to contact Kris Dobschuetz at kd2@azstateparks.gov or 602-542-7141.

Reminder – Archaeology Café (Phoenix): Pan-Regional Exchange Systems and High-Status Goods
In 2015–2016, we feature presenters who will explain the “so what?” of their findings. Accordingly, we encourage audiences to consider not only the past, but also their own place in our human story. On October 20, 2015, Arthur Vokes (Arizona State Museum) will present Pan-Regional Exchange Systems and High-Status Goods. We meet in the Aztec Room of Macayo’s Central, 4001 N. Central Ave., Phoenix, near the Indian School light rail stop. Presentations begin after 6:00 p.m. It is best to arrive at about 5:30 p.m. in order to get settled, as seating is open and unreserved, but limited. Share tables and make new friends! http://bit.ly/1iWzzZt – Archaeology Southwest

Lecture Opportunity – Tucson
On Wednesday, October 21, 2015 at 6:30 p.m. the UA School of Anthropology’s Mary C. Stiner will present Love and Death in the Stone Age at the Fox Theater in downtown Tucson. When we die, we live on as a persistent presence in the minds and memories of our loved ones.  Loved ones left behind have many ways of maintaining connections with their deceased, most notably marked burials in quiet places where the living are likely to return and visit.  Humans are the only kind of animal that buries their deceased loved ones and, as it happens, this gesture is preserved in some ancient archaeological sites. The emergence of burial traditions in the Stone Age implies that certain pre-modern humans (the Neanderthals) had already begun to care for the person as a unique, irreplaceable individual. In this lecture, Professor Stiner explores the origins of this essential human development, which likely represents the first cognitive bridge between the living and the deceased in human evolution. Tickets available at the Fox Theatre on the day of Dr. Stiner’s lecture, beginning at 4:00 p.m. For more information about the SBS Downtown Lecture Series, visit http://bit.ly/1KhZ9Ot – University of Arizona