Innovative Study of DNA of Domesticated Animals Used to Track Migrations from Mesa Verde

Innovative Study of DNA of Domesticated Animals Used to Track Migrations from Mesa Verde
The 13^th century Puebloan depopulation of the Four Corners region of the US Southwest is an iconic episode in world prehistory. Studies of its causes, as well as its consequences, have a bearing not only on archaeological method and theory, but also social responses to climate change, the sociology of social movements, and contemporary patterns of cultural diversity… We collected mitochondrial haplotypic data from dog (Canis lupus familiaris) and turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) remains from archaeological sites in the most densely-populated portion of the Four Corners region, and the most commonly proposed destination area for that population under migration scenarios. Results are consistent with a large-scale migration of humans, accompanied by their domestic turkeys, during the 13th century CE. These results support scenarios that suggest contemporary Pueblo peoples of the Northern Rio Grande are biological and cultural descendants of Four Corners populations. http://bit.ly/2wSmlVh – PLOS One

Science Magazine Explores Implications of Turkey DNA Study
In the late 1200s, the Ancestral Puebloan people of what is today the Four Corners Region of the U.S. Southwest suddenly vanished. For centuries, the culture—also known as the Anasazi—had grown maize and built elaborate villages and sandstone castles. Then, it was gone. Now, using DNA extracted from ancient turkeys, researchers say they have new insights into where these mysterious people went, though some experts are skeptical of the findings. “While I think the concept behind the study is a terrific idea, and they present a really plausible case … the evidence is a little weak,” says R. G. Matson, an anthropologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. http://bit.ly/2wTccr3 – Science

A Closer Look at Pre-Clovis Coastal Migration Patterns
Matthew Des Lauriers got the first inkling that he had stumbled on something special when he pulled over on a dirt road here, seeking a place for his team to use the bathroom. While waiting for everyone to return to the car, Des Lauriers, then a graduate student at the University of California, Riverside, meandered across the landscape, scanning for stone tools and shell fragments left by the people who had lived on the island in the past 1500 years. As he explored, his feet crunched over shells of large Pismo clams—bivalves that he hadn’t seen before on the mountainous island, 100 kilometers off the Pacific coast of Baja California. The stone tools littering the ground didn’t fit, either. Unlike the finely made arrow points and razor-sharp obsidian that Des Lauriers had previously found on the island, these jagged flakes had been crudely knocked off of chunky beach cobbles. http://bit.ly/2wSIti8 – Science

Ancient Techniques for a New Era at Acoma Pueblo
Dolores and her sisters Carmel Lewis Haskaya and Emma Lewis Mitchell have spent decades crafting traditional Acoma pottery in an earth-to-pot process they began learning at their mother’s hip. In a phone interview from Acoma Pueblo, the sisters and Claudia Mitchell (daughter of Emma and granddaughter of Lucy) spoke about their work and their appearance in We Are the Seeds. http://bit.ly/2wT6B4a – Santa Fe New Mexican

Does a Chacoan Petrogylph Portray an Ancient Solar Eclipse?
On the eve of North America’s first solar eclipse in the 21st century, a pair of astronomers say that an obscure piece of rock art in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon may depict a similar celestial event that took place 920 years ago. The glyph, made on a sandstone boulder known as Piedra del Sol, portrays a circle bursting with curved tendrils and curlicues, which the researchers say resemble the filamentous fringe of an especially active sun when it disappears behind the moon. http://bit.ly/2wTovnn – Western Digs

Lecture Opportunity – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. Suzan Shown Harjo, (Southern Cheyenne/Hodulgee Muskogee), 2014 Recipient, United States Presidential Medal of Freedom; Native American Advocate, Activist, Poet, Writer, and Legislative Policy Analyst; Editor, Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations; Founding Trustee, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI); President and Founder, The Morning Star Institute, Washington, D.C. who will give a lecture The State of Native Art: 2017 on August 21at 6pm at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the annual Native Culture Matters Lecture Series. Admission is by subscription or $15 at the door. No reservations are necessary. Refreshments are served. Seating is limited. Contact Connie Eichstaedt, tel. 505 466-2775; email: southwestseminar@aol.com; website: southwestseminars.org