Continued Momentum for Bears Ears

NY Times Recognizes Presidential Legacy through Monument Creation
President Obama seems most comfortable outside on an 18-hole golf course, not hunting bear in Colorado, as Theodore Roosevelt did while president in 1905, or deep-sea fishing for tarpon in the Texas Gulf, as Franklin D. Roosevelt, an avid angler, did on a getaway from the White House in 1937. Yet as president, Mr. Obama has visited more than 30 national parks and emerged as a 21st-century Theodore Roosevelt for his protection of public lands and marine reserves. His use of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which gives a president unilateral authority to protect federal lands as national monuments, has enabled him to establish 23 new monuments, more than any other president, and greatly expand a few others. http://nyti.ms/2c0ebAK – NY Times

Utah Legislator: On Bears Ears, Utah Representatives Have Nobody to Blame but Themselves
Sometime in the next five months, as President Obama is packing, he might make a presidential national monument designation under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to protect historical and scientific objects in Southern Utah. Protecting the Bears Ears, an area that encompasses 1.9 million acres of archaeologically precious land in San Juan County. If the president acts, I predict howling from the governor’s office to the San Juan County Commission chambers, with the loudest complaints emerging from the Utah D.C. delegation. I predict they will be yelping about a lack of local input. Truth is, if there has been a lack of local ideas, it is squarely on the shoulders of Utah’s elected officials. http://bit.ly/2bsG5qw -Salt Lake Tribune

Editorial: Jonathan Bailey on Tribal Cooperation as the Key to a Bears Ears National Monument
Appalling. Basically, that is the only word that can wrap up several years of missed deadlines, ignored opportunities for collaboration, and outright racism from Utah officials in their virulent attempt to pull the reins on a National Monument designation for the Bears Ears. This proposal, as it was written, is about bringing over 13,000 years of oral history and tribal experience to an area that is both ancestrally indispensable and in dire need of their knowledge. It is about inclusiveness, collaboration, and harmonizing access and use with protection. http://bit.ly/2bsCEA0 – Utah Progressives.org

Momentum Also Builds to Protect the Grand Canyon
On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, Environment New Mexico joined with local leaders and Environment America affiliates across the Southwestern U.S. to announce a nationwide campaign to get President Obama to stop new uranium mining outside America’s most iconic national park: the Grand Canyon. More than 50 organizers have descended to nine cities in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada, including five here in Las Cruces where they have spent the last three days gathering over 4,000 petition signatures and identifying more than 500 small businesses to urge the president to create the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument before he leaves office. http://bit.ly/2bu3lS1 – Environment New Mexico

Archaeology Southwest’s Lewis Borck on Why Street Art Does Not Belong in Our Parks and Monuments
In September and October 2014, someone went on a graffiti spree through seven national parks and monuments in the western U.S., using acrylic paints and markers to create images on rock faces and signing them “Creepytings.” Readers of the blog Modern Hiker and the social network Reddit quickly uncovered the perpetrator, who had bragged about her graffiti on Instagram and Tumblr—tagging some of her posts with #leaveyourmark. The vandal turned out to be a young woman from Highland, New York, named Casey Nocket, who had spent 26 days touring the West. Her social media profiles sketched the outlines of a woman interested in social causes but who appeared to be living a fairly privileged life. And, at least initially, she showed little remorse for her actions. http://bit.ly/2bu4PMl – Sapiens

On the NPS Centennial, the Wall Street Journal Argues for Preservation of Our National Parks
As the National Park Service celebrates its 100th anniversary on Thursday, Americans should take a moment to consider how they can ensure the health of their national treasure for many generations to come. Few federal agencies command more widespread support than the NPS. A 2015 Gallup poll found that 73% of Americans were satisfied with the government’s handling of national parks, despite their overall dissatisfaction with the federal government. There are now 84 million acres in the national-park system, including 59 national parks, 20 of which were added after 1980, and 353 national monuments, battlefields and historic sites. Every year Congress creates more parks, often referred to as “Park Barrel Politics.” http://on.wsj.com/2bu74Pq – WSJ

Mesa Verde Celebrates NPS Centennial, Prepares for 100 More Years of “America’s Best Idea”
The National Park Service has completed its first 100 years of service, but for Mesa Verde Superintendent Cliff Spencer, the work is far from over. At a ceremony celebrating the National Park Service Centennial on Thursday morning, Spencer encouraged spectators to continue sharing the parks with others. “We must introduce the parks to people who have never visited them,” Spencer said. http://bit.ly/2bu5AVE – Cortez Journal

Congressman Raúl Grijalva on the Value of Connections to the Outdoors
As I got older, I spent less time visiting the public lands that make Arizona such a great place to live. “Life” took over: I went to college, got married, started a family. When I got involved in politics—first on the school board, then on the Pima County Board of Supervisors—I had even less opportunity to enjoy wild places. Still, those early experiences stayed with me. And, in fact, it was another outdoors experience with my dad that helped inspire my career as a legislator and fueled my commitment to protecting public lands across the United States. http://bit.ly/2bsDgpo – The Sierra Club

Blogs Worth Reading: Scarlet Macaws Date to Pueblo Bonito’s Earliest Constructions
One recent paper, about a year old now, reported some surprising results from the dating of the bones of one of the most distinctive species found at Chaco: scarlet macaws. These birds are not native to anywhere near the Southwest, and they must have been brought up from very far south in Mexico. They are disproportionately found at only a few sites in the Southwest, one of which is Pueblo Bonito. Traditionally it has been thought that the importation of macaws was associated with the “florescence” of Chaco, the roughly 100-year period starting around AD 1040 when most of the monumental great houses in the canyon were built and Chacoan influence is seen over a very large part of the northern Southwest. http://bit.ly/2bsDNri – Gambler’s House

Rock Art 2016 Symposium – San Diego, CA
The San Diego Rock Art Association (SDRAA) announces Rock Art 2016, San Diego’s 41st Annual Rock Art Symposium, to be held on Saturday, November 5, 2016, at the San Diego Educational Cultural Complex Theatre, 4343 Ocean View Blvd, San Diego, CA  92113. Registration is now open and the Call for Papers on any aspect of rock art research has been issued. Abstracts may be sent by October 28 to symposium@sandiegorockart.org. Full information and online registration is at www.SDRAA.org – San Diego Rock Art Association

Nice Introduction to the World of Cultural Resource Management
Back when my 10-year-old self announced to my parents that I wanted to be an archaeologist, I was met with incomprehension and a little fear – what kind of career prospect was that? But thanks to the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, federal agencies must consider the impact of construction and development projects on significant cultural resources, and take measures to avoid those impacts. Developers with federal funding or permits hire legions of cultural resource management archaeologists to help them satisfy the law’s requirements. http://bit.ly/2bu0xUV – The Conversation

James Adovasio Caught by a Rather Sweet Surprise
A surprise reunion Saturday at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village in western Washington County was a hard secret to keep. From 1973 to 1978, then-University of Pittsburgh archeologist James M. Adovasio did the famous archaeological dig at the rock shelter overlooking Cross Creek in Jefferson, three miles west of Avella, that produced two million human artifacts dating as far back as 16,000 years. It remains as perhaps the oldest site of human inhabitation yet discovered in North America. http://bit.ly/2bv5FN5 – Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Catch a Movie and a Panel Discussion with a Who’s Who of Four-Corners Archaeology – Cortez
Waking the Mammoth: A Movie and Panel Discussion Featuring Author Craig Childs with Other Four Corners Scholars will take place on Friday September 16, 7 p.m. at the Sunflower Theater in Cortez, Colorado.  We start the evening with the award-winning film, Waking the Mammoth.  Following the film a panel of distinguished scientists and researchers will take the stage. Jonathan Till (curator, Edge of Cedars Museum) will chair the discussion, which will focus on the geological and biological settings, the people, and animals that occupied a vastly different Four Corners region during the late Pleistocene.  Panel participants will include archaeologists Winston Hurst and Dr. Mark Varien, geologist Dr. Ray Kenny, paleoethnobotanist Dr. Karen Adams, and renowned author Craig Childs.  The evening promises an interesting dialogue that dives into the deepest times of human history in the Four Corners and the Americas.  For more information please go to http://bit.ly/2bv9j9Q – Sunflower Theater

Lecture Opportunity – Tucson
The Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society (AAHS) is pleased to present J. Jefferson Reid on Monday, September 19th at 7:30 pm in the University Medical Center’s Duval Auditorium (1501 N Campbell Ave, Tucson 85724), who will discuss, “Thirty Years Into Yesterday: A History of Grasshopper Archaeology.” Meetings are free and open to the public. For more information please visit the AAHS website: http://www.az-arch-and-hist.org/, or contact John D. Hall at jhall@sricrm.com with questions about this or any other AAHS program.

Lecture Opportunity – Tucson
On Thursday, September 15, 2016, at 5:30 p.m., the Arizona Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt will present “Continuity and Change in Religion at Abydos,” a free lecture by Dr. Laurel Bestock at the University of Arizona Bannister Building, Room 110, 1215 E. Lowell St., Tucson.

Lecture Opportunity – Tucson
At 6 p.m., Wednesday, September 7, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center director Allen Dart presents “Archaeological Investigations in Marana’s Crossroads at Silverbell District Park,” at the Wheeler Taft Abbett Sr. Library, 7800 N. Schisler Dr., Tucson. In this free program, Mr. Dart will illustrate and discuss artifacts and architecture discovered by archaeologists from Old Pueblo Archaeology Center and Desert Archaeology in their excavations at the ancient Yuma Wash Hohokam Indian village site and at the historical Bojórquez-Aguirre Ranch in the Crossroads District Park and nearby along Silverbell Road. 520-798-1201 or adart@oldpueblo.org.

Lecture Opportunity – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Kathleen Wall (Jemez Pueblo), Award-winning Clay and Multimedia Installation Artist; 2016 Eric and Barbara Dobbin Fellow, School for Advanced Research, who will give a talk My Artistry in Clay on September 5 at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the Native Culture Matters Lecture Series held to acknowledge the Indian Arts Research Center at School for Advanced Research. Admission is by subscription or $12 at the door. No reservations are necessary. Refreshments are served. Seating is limited. Contact Connie Eichstaedt: tel. 505 466-2775; email: southwest seminar@aol.com; southwestseminars.org