Archaeology Southwest Is off to the SAA Meetings in Washington, DC

Bears Ears in DC: Two Forums
Bears Ears, the Antiquities Act, and the Status of Our National Monuments, an SAA President-Sponsored Session, takes place Thursday, April 12, from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the SAA in Washington, DC. (Registered attendees only.) The panelists are Carleton Bowekaty (Zuni Tribal Council and co-Chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition), Willie Greyeyes (Utah Diné Bikéyah), Tommy Beaudreau (Latham & Watkins LLP and former Chief of Staff, U.S. Department of the Interior), Josh Ewing (executive director of the Friends of Cedar Mesa), Barbara Pahl (National Trust for Historic Preservation), Francis McManamon (an expert on the Antiquities Act), William Lipe (Washington State University, emeritus), R. E. Burrillo (SWCA), and Benjamin Bellorado (University of Arizona). http://saa.org/AbouttheSociety/AnnualMeeting/tabid/138/Default.aspx

Public Forum on Bears Ears
A second panel, Bears Ears and the Future of Our National Monuments, will take place on Friday evening, April 13, at 6:30 p.m. at Johns Hopkins University, 1717 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, LL7. This program, hosted by the Cultural Heritage Management Graduate Program at Johns Hopkins, is free and open to the public, but reservations are required(see link below) and space is limited. Importantly, this program will be livestreamed. Follow the link to sign up for that, or view the stream on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JHU.Cultural.Heritage.Management/) . The panel will feature Tommy Beaudreau (former Chief of Staff, U.S. Department of the Interior), Carleton Bowekaty (Zuni), Bill Doelle (Archaeology Southwest), Josh Ewing (Friends of Cedar Mesa)   and Willie Greyeyes (Utah Diné Bikéyah). http://bit.ly/2EuNMI4 – Eventbright

Crow Canyon Shares Excellent eBook on the Pueblo Farming Project
Crow Canyon researchers, their associates, and Hopi partners have gathered invaluable information through Crow Canyon’s Pueblo Farming Project. Now everyone can learn about the project and traditional farming in the Southwest by reading the new E-book, The Pueblo Farming Project: A Collaboration between Hopi Farmers and the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. http://bit.ly/2JvcKuG – Crow Canyon via Github

“Protecting some sacred sites isn’t enough when the whole landscape is sacred” – Sierra Club Shares an In-Depth Analysis of Fracking at Chaco
In it’s heyday—roughly the 11th century—Chaco was the apogee of civilization in what is now the United States. Until the 19th century, its 15 major buildings were the largest in North America. Pueblo Bonito, the biggest, has as many as 800 rooms and more than 30 kivas, perfectly cylindrical sunken rooms marked by holes in the floor called sipapus, symbolic reminders of the opening to the Third World below, from which Pueblo and Navajo people believe their ancestors emerged. The largest kiva at Chaco is at Casa Rinconada, on the far side of the canyon from Pueblo Bonito; in midsummer, the rising sun will shine in a window, neatly illuminating a niche in the opposite wall.  http://bit.ly/2JpT4bv – Sierra Club

Villalpando and McGuire Launch New Research on the Trincheras Tradition
Archaeologists from Mexico and the United States have started a new binational project to explore ancient settlements in the Altar Valley of the Sonoran Desert, according to a government bulletin published yesterday.  Expert teams from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and Binghamton University in New York state commenced excavation work in the area just south of the Mexico-U.S. border last fall, the INAH statement said. The project called Mobility, connectivity and ethnogenesis in the Trincheras Tradition, is funded by the National Science Foundation, a United States government agency, and led by Elisa Villalpando of INAH Sonora and Randall McGuire of Binghamton University. http://bit.ly/2EvuyBU – Mexico News Daily

New Research on Clovis Migration Suggest Clovis People Moved into Alaska from the South, rather than from the Bering Strait
Analyses of numerous spear points with fluted edges found in northern Alaska and Yukon, and artifacts from further south in Canada, the Great Plains, and eastern United States, prove that the Ice Age peopling of the Americas was much more complex than previously believed. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could change how scientists view the traveling patterns and routes of early humans from 14,000 to 12,000 years ago as they settled in numerous parts of North America. http://bit.ly/2Js3UxL – Science News

Drone Imagery Highlights Long-Hidden Nasca Geoglyphs
Etched into the high desert of southern Peru more than a millennium ago, the enigmatic Nasca lines continue to capture our imagination. More than a thousand of these geoglyphs (literally, ‘ground drawings’) sprawl across the sandy soil of Nasca province, the remains of little-understood ritual practices that may have been connected to life-giving rain. Now, Peruvian archaeologists armed with drones have discovered more than 50 new examples of these mysterious desert monuments in adjacent Palpa province, traced onto the earth’s surface in lines almost too fine to see with the human eye. In addition, archaeologists surveyed locally known geoglyphs with drones for the first time—mapping them in never-before-seen detail. http://bit.ly/2EukBVD – National Geographic

Bears Ears: What We Are about to Lose
Vestiges of the Ancestral Puebloan civilization remain embedded in a network of canyons and mesas around Alkali Ridge, offering thousand-year old clues to how the Anasazi and their predecessors survived on agriculture in the arid, rugged landscape, then vanished in the 13th century. But that ancient heritage could now be at risk as the Bureau of Land Management leases the public lands in question for oil and gas development, over the objections of historic preservationists and wilderness advocates. Marking a major departure from a cautious strategy that guided public land use during the Obama years, the Trump administration is paving the way for drilling. http://bit.ly/2ExWs0o – Salt Lake Tribune

How Will the Downsized Monuments Be Managed?
Should a national monument encourage visitation to its grand attractions with paved roads and restrooms, or should federal managers seek to preserve the lands in their natural state? That is among the key questions the Bureau of Land Management will be weighing over the next year as it crafts new management plans for the greatly reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah. http://bit.ly/2Eug5q3 – Salt Lake Tribune

Archaeology Southwest’s Hands-On Archaeology at Celebrate Oro Valley AZ
Celebrate Oro Valley is new, annual event, designed to celebrate the community we love. This year’s theme, “Then & Now” will highlight the Town’s founding year of 1974, showcasing the following pillars of our history. Allen Denoyer and Hands-On Archaeology will be onsite for Day 2 of the festival on Saturday, April 14, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Steam Pump Ranch, 10901 N. Oracle Rd., Oro Valley AZ. http://bit.ly/2Jx47jc – Oro Valley Calendar

Lecture Opportunity – Phoenix
The Phoenix Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society invites you to come join us in the Pueblo Grande Museum on Tuesday, April 10th, at 7:00 pm to hear Ethan Ortega, Instructional Coordinator and Supervisory Archaeologist for the Northern Region of New Mexico Historic Sites (Coronado, Jemez, and Los Luceros), discuss False Truths, Restored Ruins, and New Artifacts: Looking Beyond the Oxymoronic Past of the Coronado Historic Site through Field Work. \he Pueblo Grande Museum is located at 4619 E. Washington Street, Phoenix. Join us for light refreshments before the meeting, followed by an interesting talk and a short Q&A period. Contact Ellie Large at 480-461-0563 for more information.

Lecture Opportunity – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. Michael Bletzer, Archaeologist, Cultural and Historic Preservation Department, Isleta Pueblo, who will present a lecture Summer of Don Juan and the Last Years of the Piro Province, c. 1665-1681 on April 16 at 6pm at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the annual Ancient Sites Ancient Stories II Lecture Series held to honor and acknowledge The Archaeological Conservancy. 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