Archaeology Is Often the Last Line of Defense for the Places of the Past

Archaeology Is Often the Last Line of Defense for the Places of the Past
Sometimes I get the feeling that, as a field archaeologist, I am an undertaker for wild places, for I might be one of the last people to see a place before it is chained, leveled, mined, trenched or burned. The thought of what comes next has at times saddened me to the point of tears, because “progress” brings change, and change often means that valuable remnants of history must be destroyed. This sense of being the last line of defense for special places sets archaeologists apart and makes most of us passionate about the resources we love. Our work puts us at odds with developers and construction companies, and it often irritates our managers. We know that if we miss something, there are stories that will never be told, histories that will be forever extinguished when a blade or scoop or plow rips through them. http://bit.ly/2sbX2hD – Kevin Jones via High Country News

What Is at Stake at Bears Ears? A Photo Essay
Monuments come in different shapes and sizes. For many, monuments bring to mind plaques or statues that commemorate some historical figure or event. It is important to recognize that places may also be monuments—from a dot on a map, as with the Four Corners Monument, or expansive tracts of natural landscape, such as the Grand Canyon, which was a national monument before it became a national park. What constitutes them as monuments is not their size, but the stories they tell and the values they enshrine. The sizes, shapes, contours, and colors of our nation’s monuments vary considerably, and justly so, because our nation strives to honor the stories and values of all of its citizens in its public lands. http://bit.ly/2sdlcsd – Aaron Wright via Archaeology Southwest

Clovis Era Deposits Found on California Channel Island
A crew tunneling under a historic ranch house on Santa Rosa Island has uncovered a site that could help experts piece together what life was like there more than 8,000 years ago. On the island 40 miles off Ventura, archaeologists discovered stone tools characteristic of sites occupied 8,000 to 13,000 years ago. http://bit.ly/2sbTqw9 – Ventura County Star

Study of Skull Morphology May Point to Multiple Ancient Migrations to the Americas
A trio of researchers affiliated with institutions in the U.S., Europe and South America has found evidence that suggests the native people of South America likely arrived from more than one place. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, André Strauss and Mark Hubbe describe how they applied imaging technology to skulls that have been unearthed in Brazil and what was revealed. http://bit.ly/2t9FAHF – Phys.org

Can Repatriation Help to Heal the Wounds from the Past?
The Sand Creek Massacre took place more than 150 years ago. Yet, it has not yet ended. This crime of American expansionism has continued to reverberate through the generations. The original war over land and dominance has transformed into a battle over memory and emancipation. The demand for the return of ancestral human remains from museums is perhaps the most visible – and tangible – struggle for Native America’s cultural survival. Repatriation asks us to consider whether we can ever fully come to terms with the past. http://bit.ly/2t9ZO4j – Chip Colwell via Aeon.com

Sapawe Open for Limited Public Tours
The New Mexico State Land office is providing summer tours of archaeological ruins from a 700-year-old Native American settlement that is rarely seen by the public. State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn announced Thursday the summer tours of Pueblo Sapawe, located on state trust land at the northern New Mexico town of El Rito. The settlement was inhabited from roughly 1350 until as late as 1550 and contained 24 multi-room buildings that were arranged around several plazas. The layout of the buildings and a variety of artifacts are still visible. Limited reservations starting June 24 are available through the State Land Office website. http://bit.ly/2t9XOZY – KOB4 Albuquerque

Archaeoastronomy at Moon House
You have no written language, books, TV, computer, phone, internet, or recorded music. All you have is your intellect, your community, your family, and your civilization. You’ve identified items you can make without much technology, like rock art, baskets, stone tools, and clothing. When darkness falls, you have sky, fire, voices, faces, drums, flutes, food, sex, and dreams. That’s pretty much it. Such was life for the ancestral Puebloan people, often called the Anasazi, who inhabited southeastern Utah. Their cliff-dwelling stage lasted between 1150 and 1300. During this span, they built and decorated a complex on a plateau called Cedar Mesa. In the 1960s, archeologist Bill Lipe of Washington State University dubbed it the “Moon House.” The name stuck. The Moon House divides into three sections: a living area with about half a dozen households, a storage area, and a large room reserved for religious or social meetings. Throughout the structure, its walls carry decorations that may indicate that those who lived there carefully watched the sky. http://bit.ly/2sc1mxA – Huffington Post

Colorado’s Montezuma County Begins a Historic Register with the Haynie Site
The first listing on the new Montezuma County Historic Register is an ancient ruins on private land off County Road L occupied between the sixth and 13th centuries. The Haynie site includes two multistory great houses dating to the early 1100s, an architectural style first developed by the Chacoan culture to the south in New Mexico. The site is a new research focus of Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, of Cortez, and is part of their Northern Chaco Outliers Project. http://bit.ly/2t9Umyl – Cortez Journal

Theodore Roosevelt IV on the Struggle over Our Public Lands at Bears Ears
President Obama stepped in and used the Antiquities Act as it was intended: to save lands of archeological, natural or historical significance when Congress fails to do so — when what is at risk is too great to squander. This was followed by a presidential election. For the first time in our history, President Trump issued an executive order directing the Secretary of the Interior to review all National Monument designations since 1996 of over 100,000 acres and make recommendations with regard to possibly rescinding some or all. The prospects of the Trump administration winning that legal argument in the courts seem dim at best. But, in this instance in particular, it would add yet another unnecessarily bitter twist to the tale. http://bit.ly/2t9V1Qu – Salt Lake Tribune

What is the Future of Bears Ears?
If Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke decides to revoke its status, it would be the latest example of the federal government setting aside land in conjunction with tribes, only to break the agreement. http://theatln.tc/2sc0qcd – The Atlantic

The Struggle over Our Public Lands – A View From Across the Pond
At a moment of deep political division, few issues draw as much bipartisan support from the American public as the sanctity of public lands. Yet conservative lawmakers have quietly laid the foundation to give away Americans’ birthright: 640m acres of national land. From Yosemite to the Grand Canyon to the Katahdin woods of Maine, no other country on earth offers the breadth and accessibility of American’s public lands. This shared resource is both an economic powerhouse and a common refuge where Americans come to hike, camp, ski, rock climb, fish and hunt.  http://bit.ly/2t9Ia0A – The Guardian

Editorial: The Antiquities Act Has Created a Museum Without Walls
The Antiquities Act of 1906 celebrates its 111th birthday today. The title itself feels ancient and calls up images of dusty artifacts, ruins, dwellings and landscapes as old as the earth. Since being passed by Congress and signed into law by Teddy Roosevelt, the Act gives authority to and has been used by 16 presidents (eight Republican and eight Democratic) to protect and preserve America’s national heritage, its lands and oceans, cultural and scientific resources, in 129 national monuments on federal lands and waters nationwide. http://bit.ly/2scdKxi – Durango Herald

California Attorney General Plans to Defend National Monuments
California’s attorney general argued Thursday that President Trump has no legal authority to revoke or modify national monuments created by previous administrations. In an 11-page letter to the Interior Department, state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra vowed “to take any and all legal action necessary” to preserve six California monuments, including one in Los Angeles’ backyard, that the Trump Administration may attempt to revoke or shrink. http://lat.ms/2sbKuqJ – Los Angeles Times

Editorial: Attack on Our National Monuments Is an Attack upon American Diversity
June 8 marks 111 years since President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act, opening the door for sixteen Presidents — eight Democrats and eight Republicans — to designate national monuments that reflect our nation’s diversity. National monuments like Bears Ears in Utah, Gold Butte in Nevada, and San Gabriel Mountains in California engage and pay homage to the cultures and communities that contribute to our country’s great history. http://bit.ly/2sbpvUL – The Hill

Editorial: As Usual, Detractors of Bears Ears Are Playing Fast and Loose with the Truth
The Obama administration pointedly excluded the White Canyon uranium district from the Bears Ears National Monument, disappointing the tribes that proposed the monument and paleontologists who hoped to see the canyons’ Triassic fossils protected. But President Barack Obama’s nod to mining interests isn’t stopping Utah officials from claiming that the 1.3-million-acre monument he designated last year will destroy the state’s uranium industry. http://bit.ly/2sbIxug – Salt Lake Tribune

Navajo Elder: Utah Officials Never Planned to Protect Ancient or Sacred Native Places
The politics surrounding Bears Ears National Monument are cut and dried. Or so says Mark Maryboy, the first Navajo elected to the San Juan County Commission, who served four terms, stepping away from office in 2007. “The leadership of Utah, from the beginning, has never supported preservation of [American Indian] sacred sites,” Maryboy said Friday. “Utah’s congressional delegation is not interested in protecting the environment.” The respected elder statesman of Utah Navajos made his comments as the Trump administration prepares to announce that it may rescind or drastically reduce the size of the 1.35 million-acre monument, designated by former President Barack Obama in December. http://bit.ly/2ta3C5v – Salt Lake Tribune

Federal Land Managers Agree to Plan for a New Land-Use Plan for Chaco Landscape
Federal land managers have laid out their plans for weighing the effects of oil and gas development in northwestern New Mexico on everything from archaeological resources to light pollution. The Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs released a final scoping report this week as work continues to revamp the management plan that guides development in one of the nation’s largest basins. http://bit.ly/2sc04Cm – US News and World Report

International Travel Slump Expected to Harm Tourism in the Four Corners
Tourism is an important economic force in Southwest Colorado, and its success depends on multiple factors: weather, wildfires, gas prices, airfares, news coverage, terror threats, violence against foreigners and what destinations the travel press is promoting this year. International politics also matter and, this year, the United States has a president who is not interested in making nice with foreigners nor welcoming them to the country. Tourism professionals have reason to believe that is costing their industry. http://bit.ly/2sbU1Op – Durango Herald

Lecture Opportunity – Mesa Verde
Harvey Leake, great-grandson of John Wetherill, will discuss the activities of his ancestors and their archaeological investigations in the area on June 16, at 7 p.m. at the Visitor and Research Center at Mesa Verde National Park. This program is part of the 2017 Four Corner Lecture Series and is free and open to the public. http://bit.ly/2t9Umyu – Cortez Journal

Lecture Opportunity – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. Don Blakeslee, Department of Anthropology, Wichita State University; Past President, Professional Archaeologists of Kansas; Past President, American Society for Amateur Archaeologists; Author, Holy Ground, Healing Water: Cultural Landscapes at Waconda Lake; ‘Caves and Related Sites in the Great Plains of North America; and ‘In Sacred Darkness: A Global Perspective on the Ritual Use of Caves’, who will give a lecture The Spanish Expeditions to Quivira on June 12 at 6pm at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the Voices From the Past Lecture Series held to honor and acknowledge The New Mexico History Museum. Admission is by subscription or $15 at the door. No reservations are necessary. Refreshments are served. Seating is limited. Contact Connie Eichstaedt at tel 505 466-2775; email: southwest seminar@aol.com; website: http://southwestseminars.org>

Lecture Opportunity – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. Scott Ortman, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado; External Professor and former Omidyar Fellow, Santa Fe Institute; Former Laboratory Director, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center; Author Winds From the North: Tewa Originsa and Historical Anthropology who will give a lecture Spanish Impact on Pueblos: Re-Thinking 17th Century New Mexico on June 19 at 6pm at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the Voices From the Past Lecture Series held to honor and acknowledge The New Mexico History Museum. Admission is by subscription or $15 at the door. No reservations are necessary. Refreshments are served. Seating is limited. Contact Connie Eichstaedt at tel 505 466-2775; email: southwest seminar@aol.com;  http://southwestseminars.org

Thanks to Terry Colvin for contributions to this week’s newsletter