National Monuments Protect Meaning as Much as Places

Editorial: National Monuments Protect Meaning as Much as Places
This site — we’ll call it the Sagebrush Site — is like hundreds of others in the region, in that it is not part of a national monument, or park, or other special protected area. Instead, it’s on a Bureau of Land Management parcel that has been grazed, criss-crossed with de facto roads and drilled for oil and gas. It lies a couple dozen miles east of the outer edge of Bears Ears National Monument, yet it illustrates how Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s proposal to shrink the new monument, while purportedly still protecting the “significant” cultural resources, is outdated, myopic and leaves important sites unprotected. http://bit.ly/2xFMMi1 – High Country News

Do We Have Too Many National Monuments?
Under an order from President Trump, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is reviewing the status of 27 national monuments that were designated or expanded by presidents as far back as Jan. 1, 1996, using authority under the Antiquities Act. Conservation groups and Native American tribes strongly support creating national monuments to protect sensitive lands and public resources from development or exploitation. But other stakeholders, including adjoining communities and businesses that use the areas in question, often view these steps as federal land grabs. The Interior Department received more than 1.2 million public comments on the review. http://bit.ly/2xG8iTQ – The Conversation

Crow Canyon Presents Study on the Economic Impacts of Heritage Sites in SW Colorado
This report focuses on the economic contributions of selected prehistoric cultural resources in southwest Colorado in 2016. These landscapes, recognized internationally, convey vital chapters of
human habitation over thousands of years. Resources discussed in this report include: the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, Chimney Rock National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument, Mesa Verde National Park, the Ute Mountain Tribal Park and Yucca House National Monument. http://bit.ly/2xI4bXu – Crow Canyon Archaeological Center

The Tree at the Heart of Hopi Culture
The one-seed juniper is the most humble of trees. It grows leisurely, each year lucky to reach some 6 inches closer to the sky. A mature plant, a survivor of centuries of droughts and storms, may stand no taller than you or I. The bark, a coarse calico of grays, sheds from the trunk in long strips like peeling skin. The tree is just common enough to easily fade into the dusty landscape in which it grows—a range that extends from Arizona to the western regions of Texas and Oklahoma, from southern Colorado to perhaps as far south as Mexico. It is an evergreen, but its leaves typically feel sharp and look burned. Few would say it is beautiful. And yet, the juniper’s ordinariness masks an array of remarkable gifts. It is an oyster of the high desert that hides many pearls inside. To the Hopi people, the juniper is a vital part of their traditional way of life. http://bit.ly/2xFUwQY – Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa and Chip Colwell via Sapiens

The Story of the Texas Archaeological Research Labratory
The drawer opens wide to reveal its prize: scores of woven sandals, each hundreds of years old. The astonishingly well-preserved shoes, tucked away in a North Austin archive, were discovered inside the Ceremonial Cave at Fort Bliss in West Texas. Scholars suggest that they were left behind in the dry rock shelter as gifts from the faithful. There, desert conditions have ensured that this Native American apparel survives to tell a concrete story about a little-known Texas past. https://atxne.ws/2xG4NwM – Austin American-Statesman

New Podcast Series Focuses on Mesa Verde
A podcast series about the prehistory of ancestral Puebloans in the Four Corners will launch Friday with three introductory episodes, according to a news release from the park. “Mesa Verde Voices” will connect the issues the ancestral Puebloans faced with the issues residents of the region face today. The podcast is a result of a partnership between the national park, Mesa Verde Museum Association, KSJD Public Radio and Mesa Verde Country Tourism Bureau. The first three episodes – “Revealed by Fire,” “Corn = Life” and “Moving On” – focus on different aspects ancestral Puebloan life and how modern archaeology is uncovering it in places such as Cliff Palace and Spruce Tree House. The episodes will be available for free at mesaverdevoices.org or on iTunes. http://bit.ly/2xG8oe3 – Durango Herald

Aztec Ruins National Monument Hosts First Shooting Star Party
The Perseid meteor shower rained down on planet Earth in early August, and some New Mexicans were fortunate enough to see the show among the work of the ancients. Among the increasingly popular night events at Aztec Ruins National Monument, visitors were allowed in after park hours to sit with rangers and view the meteor shower from within the walls of the 900-year-old monument. During the event, which park rangers called their “Shooting Star Party,” visitors of all ages were welcomed to the park for free to engage in several educational activities to learn about the history of nocturnal navigation, what a meter shower actually is and the relevance of the stars to cultures native and abroad. http://bit.ly/2xG7ePX – The Taos News

Interpretive Trail to Share Hohokam Culture in Peoria AZ
The ancient Hohokam people settled the land that has come to be known as central Arizona hundreds of years ago. And Peoria is home to the largest known prehistoric Hohokam village on the New River. Principal Planner Melissa Sigmund said Peoria is putting a spotlight on the archaeological site by constructing an interpretive trail at a city park that is expected to be complete in the coming months. http://bit.ly/2xG982S – Your West Valley.Com

Tour Opportunity – Yellow Jacket Pueblo
Public tours are being offered of a little-known ancient village at the head of Yellow Jacket Canyon. The Archaeological Conservancy, based in Albuquerque, owns the private Yellow Jacket Pueblo ruin, which is not open to the public except for special tours. They are offering free tours Sept. 17 and Oct. 8. http://bit.ly/2xHMWFv – Durango Herald

Travelogue: Driving the Ancestral Puebloan Circle
To visit the densest settlements in North America of a thousand years ago, you have to travel through some of the most sparsely populated areas in New Mexico today. At least, that was the impression reporter Jesse Moya and I got from making a weekend trip that amounted to an “Ancestral Pueblo” ruin circle – a journey from Taos to Aztec Ruins National Monument to Chaco Culture National Historical Park, then back. And this circle has a much wider circumference than the “Enchanted Circle” of Taos, Angel Fire, Eagle Nest, Red River and Questa. http://bit.ly/2xFWcKw – The Taos News

Lecture Opportunity – Cave Creek
Desert Foothills Chapter – AAS (Http://www.azarchsoc.wildapricot.org/desertfoothills) presents on September 13th from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM at no charge, Dr. Todd Bostwick for Nazca Lines. Those mysterious lines and figures sketched onto the desert floor of southern Peru, one of the most arid regions of the world, have long intrigued archaeologists and explorers. There are various theories proposed concerning the origins and purposes of these geoglyphs, from wild speculation that they served as runways for alien spaceships to more believable but nonetheless controversial ideas that they are related to ancient astronomy. The meeting is held in the community building (Maitland Hall) at The Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church, 6502 East Cave Creek Road, Cave Creek, AZ 85331 (near the Dairy Queen).

Lecture Opportunity – Taos
The Taos Archaeological Society is pleased to resume our monthly lecture series with Alysia Abbott, PhD, who will lecture on The Pre-Columbian Peopling of the Taos Area: When and How at 7 PM in the Kit Carson Board Room, 118 Cruz Alta Road, Taos. Contact Rebecca Quintana @ 575-770-7460 for questions or further information.

Lecture Opportunities – Tucson
On Friday evenings September 29-December 8 archaeologist Allen Dart offers a 10-session Prehistory of the Southwest Class: The Hohokam Culture of Southern Arizona at Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, 2201 W. 44th Street, Tucson. Class explores the archaeology of southern Arizona’s ancient Hohokam culture, covering its origins, material culture (ceramics, other artifacts, architecture, etc.), subsistence and settlement systems, social and organizational systems, interaction within and beyond the region, and ideas on religion and trade. $95 fee (Old Pueblo and Pueblo Grande Museum Auxiliary members $80) excludes cost of textbook. Reservations and payment required by 5 p.m. September 26: 520-798-1201 or info@oldpueblo.org.