Coalition Created to Protect the Chaco Landscape

Coalition Created to Protect the Chaco Landscape
A coalition of conservationists has launched a campaign to raise awareness over oil and gas operations near Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Paul Reed, a Chaco scholar and a preservation archaeologist with Tucson-based Archaeology Southwest, has been working on protecting the Chaco landscape for more than two years with other conservationists. He has just launched a new campaign, the Coalition to Protect the Greater Chaco Landscape. http://bit.ly/1OJgBCF – Farmington Times

Development of Heritage Tourism Destinations, Derailed
“My thought is, how do you create a community that is economically stronger and more diversified and balanced, and I saw a heritage area as a tool to help us do that,” says Wooten. He had no idea that garnering the necessary support would make defeating the U.S. Army seem almost easy in comparison.” http://bit.ly/1m5POoU – High Country News

California Drought Is Exposing Ancient Places to Looting
Along cracked-mud shorelines and beneath tangles of weeds on parched riverbanks, artifacts and archaeological sites that have rested in peace beneath the water for hundreds and even thousands of years have become increasingly visible as the state’s drought has lingered, leaving them susceptible to plunder by opportunistic looters. Though archaeological pillaging is age-old, the receding waters of the state’s lakes, rivers and reservoirs have lent special urgency to the issue here, exposing the remains of a lost California and alarming archaeologists, historians and especially Native Americans whose ancestral grounds are increasingly vulnerable to thieves bearing picks and shovels. http://nyti.ms/1m5Q1IR – NY Times

Climate Change Presents a Threat to World Heritage
The seaport of Annapolis, Maryland, had seen floods before. But many residents were unprepared for the deluge of stormwater that gushed into the streets in mid-September 12 years ago when Hurricane Isabel struck the coast. Water rose through the drain system at the U.S. Naval Academy and swamped campus buildings, including some of the ornate, century-old halls. Downshore, in the Annapolis historic district, where some of the houses and buildings predate the American Revolution, the water spilled over windowsills. http://bit.ly/21HS8Df – Al Jazeera America

Homol’ovi Research Program Focusing on Utility-Ware Ceramics 
Archaeologists at the UA School of Anthropology and the Arizona State Museum are cooking up something big for their next project. Researchers are using utility-ware pottery and cookware to learn more about migration patterns at the Homol’ovi Hopi pueblo sites. The Homol’ovi Research Program began in 1985 as a collaboration between the UA School of Anthropology and the Arizona State Museum. Originally, the project involved working on Hopi pueblos at Homol’ovi State Park near Winslow, Arizona. The project later shifted to focus on the Chevelon Pueblo, the third largest pueblo of the Homol’ovi villages, which are believed to have been occupied from about 1280 to 1380. http://bit.ly/1YSH17V – Arizona Daily Wildcat

Will Tucson’s 4,000-Year-Old Gastronomic Heritage Be Recognized by UNESCO?
The winding, rocky road up to Gary Nabhan’s Patagonia home is definitely not suited for a sedan. It gets pretty hairy a couple of times while creeping up the path going just a few miles per hour upward, but there, at the top of a hill with a beautiful vantage of a couple local farms, is Nabhan’s rustic Southwestern home. The irony is that, in trying to figure out what makes Tucson a gastronomic destination, driving an hour south of the city and into another county actually makes a lot of sense-—if ever there was someone whose collective knowledge could sum up the long and unique farming heritage of the region, it’d be Nabhan. Once at the top of the hill, his long career as an agricultural ecologist and enthobotanist is evident all around. Nabhan’s home is surrounded by trees and plants grown using farming techniques used in the area for thousands and thousands of years. It’s that continuous agricultural heritage, spanning back 4,000 years—the longest in the country, that offers one large argument as to why Tucson and its surrounding areas should be recognized as the first UNESCO-designated Creative City of Gastronomy in North America. http://bit.ly/1YSHp6x – Tucson Weekly

Winter 2015 Issue of Pottery Southwest Is Now Online
Published by the Albuquerque Archaeological Society since 1974, Pottery Southwest is available free of charge on its website, which is hosted by the Maxwell Museum of the University of New Mexico (http://www.unm.edu/~psw). Pottery Southwest provides a venue for students, professional, and avocational archaeologists to publish articles as well as providing an opportunity to share questions and answers. The featured article in Pottery Southwest 31(4) is: The Biscuit Ware “Awanyu”: Re-Thinking a Curious Motif by David H. Snow.

Southwest Colorado Canyons Alliance Collaborates with Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
Marcie Ryan and Diane McBride of Southwest Colorado Canyons Alliance worked with Acting Visitor Services Director David Sanders and Acting Canyons of the Ancients National Monument Manager and Anasazi Heritage Center Director Emily Palus to install two of the 30 signs that SCCA contributed in March, 2014, as part of their mission to support Canyons of the Ancients National Monument through financial and volunteer resources. The signage will inform visitors to the Monument of proper transportation practices, such as staying on designated roads. More collaboration is planned. If you are interested in helping, please contact Director Diane McBride at diane.mcbride@swcocanyons.org. Southwest Colorado Canyons Alliance is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of the irreplaceable cultural and natural landscape of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and its headquarters the Anasazi Heritage Center.

Research Suggests Proposed Grand Canyon Monument Would Generate an Annual $50 Million for Local Economy
A new study shows the land proposed for a national monument outside Grand Canyon National Park currently brings more than $50 million in revenue to northern Arizona. Arizona Public Radio’s Ryan Heinsius reports. http://bit.ly/1Ryb2YI – KNAU

Tour Opportunity – Tucson
On December 21 archaeologist Allen Dart leads Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s 8 a.m.-12 p.m. Winter Solstice Tour of Los Morteros and Picture Rocks Petroglyphs Archaeological Sites departing from Silverbell Road and Linda Vista Blvd. in Marana, Arizona. Los Morteros is an ancient Hohokam village site with a ballcourt and bedrock mortars. The petroglyphs at Picture Rocks include a solstice and equinox marker, dancing human-like figures, whimsical animals, and other rock symbols made by Hohokam Indians between 650 and 1450. Fee $35 (Old Pueblo and Pueblo Grande Museum Auxiliary members $28). Reservations are required by December 20: 520-798-1201 or info@oldpueblo.org

Lecture Opportunity – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Ethnobotanist and Archaeologist Dr. Richard I. Ford, who will give a lecture December 14 at 6pm at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the Mother Earth Father Sky Lecture Series held to acknowledge The New Mexico Environmental Law Center. Admission is by subscription or $12 at the door. No reservations are necessary. Refreshments are served. Seating is limited. Contact Connnie Eichstaedt tel:505 466-2775; email: southwest seminar@aol.com; http://bit.ly/YhJddr