AZ State Parks Director Ousted

AZ Governor Fires State Parks Director
Black’s termination follows an Arizona Republic investigation revealing allegations from former department archaeologists that Arizona State Parks & Trails had repeatedly developed state land without regard for laws protecting Native American and other archaeological sites. http://bit.ly/2PIRhos – Arizona Republic

The parks director kept her job through numerous inquiries or investigations into her work since she started leading the state department in 2015. But allegations that the parks department, under Black’s knowledge, flattened an archeological site containing Native antiquities was likely the tipping point that led Gov. Doug Ducey to fire Black. http://bit.ly/2PHccIQ – Arizona Capitol Times

SAA’s Nov. 12 Letter to Gov. Ducey
The preservation of our shared cultural and historic resources is an imperative reflected in both state and federal law. Thus, it is very upsetting to learn the ASPT may have knowingly and systematically disregarded state and federal historic preservation laws by allowing the construction of recreational facilities on state lands, including Lake Havasu, without proper environmental analysis that would have required archaeological investigations and stakeholder consultation. More disturbing still are allegations that the Director and Deputy Director forced the former department archaeologist to sign a letter disavowing concerns he had expressed about these practices to outside parties. Our public laws specifically require the transparent engagement of the public and Native American tribes to ensure sound and balanced decision making. http://bit.ly/2PMcSg8 – Society for American Archaeology

Archaeology Southwest’s Formal Comments on BLM’s Draft Monument Management Plan for Bears Ears
Drs. Bill Doelle and John Welch submitted formal comments to the BLM (Canyon Country District Office) regarding BLM’s Bears Ears National Monument Unit Draft Monument Management Plan and Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Read their letter here.: http://bit.ly/2QT3F1Q (opens as a PDF)

Amicus Briefs Filed in National Monuments Litigation
Today, led by U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and U.S. Representative Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), 26 Senators and 92 House members submitted an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs in five cases before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that challenges the Trump administration’s decision to significantly diminish the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in southern Utah. In the brief, the lawmakers argue that under the Constitution, no president has the power to shrink or reduce national monuments since that power resides with Congress alone — a case that members of Congress are uniquely positioned to make. Under the Antiquities Act, Congress has granted presidents the authority to designate national monuments—not reduce or abolish them, and the amicus is being filed now to defend Congress’s prerogatives as a federal court is weighing challenges to the Trump administration’s attempt to dramatically reduce previously established monuments. http://bit.ly/2QZsvxb – Senator Tom Udall

The American Anthropological Association (AAA), the Society for American Archaeology (SAA), and the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) have joined to submit an amicus curiae brief in support of the plaintiffs who have sued the Trump administration alleging that the President does not have authority under the Antiquities Act to substantially reduce the size of Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. http://bit.ly/2R4LPJz – American Anthropological Association

A group of 21 mayors and council members from around Utah have signed onto briefs with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in support of lawsuits filed against President Donald Trump’s shrinking of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. The amicus friend-of-the-court briefs — filed Monday and drafted by the Harvard Law School’s Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic and the Salt Lake City Attorney’s Office — contend that the process was flawed, with little input from local voices, and that the boundary reduction will have detrimental economic and environmental effects in the state. http://bit.ly/2PIfYl9 – Salt Lake Tribune

UNM Anthropology Is a Top Program for Veterans
College Factual released its 2019 national and state rankings for Best Anthropology Programs for Veterans and The University of New Mexico was at the top of the list. UNM’s Anthropology program is ranked 17 out of 260 for Veteran friendliness of all colleges and universities reviewed by College Factual. This puts UNM in the top 10 percent of all schools in the nation when it comes to offering a quality education to Veterans studying Anthropology. http://bit.ly/2PHFcAd – University of New Mexico

Audio: Interview with Author of New Book on the Deep History of Hopi Runners
Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert grew up in a community of running. He’s an enrolled member of the Hopi Tribe, and, even as a child growing up in Flagstaff, he said he would run with his family in Buffalo Park. The Hopi people have a long history of running, and in his new book, “Hopi Runners: Crossing the Terrain Between Indian and American,” he tells the story of some of the Hopi runners who made history in the early 1900s. The Show spoke with Sakiestewa Gilbert about it and how these stories changed the way America thought about Native American people. http://bit.ly/2PL21CT – KJZZ (NPR)

Video: Life before AD 1500 on the Upper Gila River, Southwest New Mexico
Footage of the November 6, 2018, Archaeology Café with Dr. Karen Schollmeyer is now available. Residents of the upper reaches of the Gila River in southwest New Mexico found successful ways of farming, hunting, and living together for over a millennium. This talk explores some of these past ways of living, including periods in which people gathered into large villages or dispersed into less archaeologically visible communities. The unique archaeological record of this area allows us to examine the challenges and benefits of these different ways of living, and how farmers adapted to local conditions from the time of the earliest villages into the late 1400s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tWbHHfl_O0 – Archaeology Southwest (opens at YouTube)

Commentary: Lower Colorado Buffwares
The impasse with Lower Colorado Buffware is threefold. There is the issue with incompatible typologies, which is exacerbated by the inaccuracies of the chronology accompanying the Rogers/Waters system. There is also the practical dilemma with assigning pot sherds to different types based on temper and paste attributes, not to mention that the utility of such types (because they have no apparent chronological relevance) has yet to be shown. For those of us working with these materials, the problems and uncertainties have begun to outweigh any usefulness of the existing typologies. https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/2018/11/19/wheres-the-buff/ – Aaron Wright at Preservation Archaeology blog

Hands-On Archaeology Workshop: How Did People Haft a Knife? Tucson AZ
Places still available! In this class, you will learn the process of hafting a stone knife blade into a wood handle. There are very few examples of hafted knives preserved in the Southwest. The style of hafting we will do in this class is based on Basketmaker and Pueblo knives that have been found in rock shelters across the Southwest. I will teach participants how to work with pitch, sinew, and cordage to haft a knife. November 24, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/event/how-did-people-haft-a-knife-4/ – Archaeology Southwest

Special Event, Cascabel AZ
Please join us for the 38th Annual Cascabel Community Fair, on the banks of the San Pedro River, Saturday and Sunday, December 1st and 2nd, 2018, 10am-4pm each day. Contact: Barbara Clark (520) 212-2529 or clayworks@rnsmte.com and check out the posting on www.cascabel.org or on Facebook under Cascabel Community Fair for more information. The Cascabel Community Fair is a celebration of rural Arizona beauty, history, hospitality, diversity and artistic expression in an awe-inspiring outdoor setting. Cascabel is located along the banks of the beautiful San Pedro River about an hour and a half drive from Tucson.

Archaeology Café (Tucson) Welcomes Todd Bostwick
Join us on Tuesday, December 4, 2018, for New Discoveries about the Cliff Dwellers of Central Arizona: A Window into Pueblo Life 800 Years Ago in the Verde Valley by Dr. Todd Bostwick of the Verde Valley Archaeology Center. Recent analysis of more than 25,000 artifacts collected from a little-known cliff dwelling located north of Montezuma Castle National Monument has provided a wealth of new information about the Sinagua culture of central Arizona. These materials include well-preserved wooden artifacts, beautifully colored cotton textiles, and plant remains that are in such remarkable condition they look like they were left behind yesterday. Photographs of this rare collection of archaeological materials will be shown and what they tell us about the people who lived along the Verde River will be discussed. https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/event/new-discoveries-about-the-cliff-dwellers-of-central-arizona/

Lecture Opportunity, Santa Fe NM
Southwest Seminars Presents Winston Hurst, Independent Archaeologist, Consultant, and Researcher; Co-Author, Survey of Rock Art in the Central Portion of Nine Mile Canyon, Eastern Utah; Author, ‘Greater Bears Ears and the Chaco’ World, in Archaeology Southwest Magazine 32-1, Sacred and Threatened, who will give a lecture Red Pots, Tasmania Celts & Multi-Ethnic Puebloan Landscapes in Ancient Southeast Utah on November 26 at 6:00 p.m. at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the annual Mother Earth Father Sky Lecture Series offered to honor The New Mexico Environmental Law Center. 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: southwest seminar@aol.com; website: southwestseminars.org

Lecture Opportunity, Tucson AZ
Old Pueblo Archaeology Center welcomes guests to the Third Thursday Food for Thought Dinner and Father Greg Adolf’s presentation “300 Years after His Death Father Kino’s Sonora and Arizona Missions Live On” about Jesuit Padre Eusebio Kino’s 1687–1711 creation of Sonoran and southern Arizonan missions and ranches that changed the area’s economics and culture. This special presentation and dinner will be held on Thursday, December 20, 2018 in the Dining Hall and Petroglyph Auditorium of the Picture Rocks Redemptorist Renewal Center (PRRRC), 7101 W. Picture Rocks Rd., Tucson. A free tour of the Picture Rocks petroglyphs will be led by archaeologist Allen Dart at 5:00 pm, followed by dinner at 6:00 and the presentation from 7:15 to 8:30. Reservations due by Dec. 18. Dinner $16, tour & presentation free. https://www.oldpueblo.org/event/third-thursday-food-for-thought-father-kinos-missions-in-sonora-and-arizona/

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Questions? sat-editor@archaeologysouthwest.org