New Mexico Delegation Introduces Chaco Protection Legislation

New Mexico Delegation Introduces Chaco Protection Legislation
Today, U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and U.S. Representatives Ben Ray Luján and Deb Haaland introduced the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act, S. 1079, a bill to withdraw the federal lands around Chaco Canyon from further mineral development. The bill, alongside anticipated actions from State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, would help ensure the protection of Chaco ruins and the greater landscape surrounding the Chaco Culture National Historical Park by preventing any future leasing or development of minerals owned by the U.S. government that are located within an approximately 10-mile protected radius around Chaco. http://bit.ly/2ULgD6Y – tomudall.senate.gov

Commentary: Protecting Chaco Is a Sacred Trust
Last month, the Navajo Nation and the All Pueblo Council of Governors (APCG) came together for a historic summit to declare our shared commitment to the Greater Chaco Landscape and to call on our congressional leaders and the Department of the Interior to conserve these sacred lands for future generations. We were joined by many other elected leaders from New Mexico who stand with us in this critical endeavor. The Greater Chaco Landscape is a truly significant resource that brings together the Pueblos of New Mexico and the Navajo Nation. Including this summit, the Navajo Nation and APCG have only met three times, with each meeting focusing on the importance of protecting the abundance of cultural and historical resources. http://bit.ly/2UGPzWB – Jonathan Nez (President, Navajo Nation) and E. Paul Torres (Chairman, All Pueblo Council of Governors) in the Albuquerque Journal

Congressional Panel to Tour Chaco before Hearing
Members of Congress are gathering in Santa Fe this month to hold a hearing on the impact of oil and gas development on sites that tribes consider sacred. The House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources hearing takes place April 15 at the state Capitol. http://bit.ly/2UDUoQx – AP News [Editors’ note: Preservation Archaeologist Paul F. Reed of Archaeology Southwest will be testifying at this hearing.]

Archaeologists Convene in Albuquerque for 84th Annual Meeting
On Friday afternoon [Jones] is a co-presenter of a session with the dizzying title “Tracking Individual Raptors in the Archaeological Record Using Stable Isotope Analysis: Some Implications for the Study of Ritual Economies in New Mexico.” Jones laughs when asked to break that down. She said it is about determining how Puebloan people of several hundred years ago used the bones of raptors, especially eagles. “My part of it is what animals (hawks, eagles, other raptors) were eating in A.D. 1300 to A.D. 1600,” she said. https://bit.ly/2UI59kx – Albuquerque Journal

Archaeology Southwest at the Society for American Archaeology Meeting
Preservation Archaeologist Karen Schollmeyer compiled this information about presentations by Archaeology Southwest’s staff at the annual meeting, which begins today. http://bit.ly/2UHFdWq – Archaeology Southwest

Center for Southwest Studies to Repatriate Funerary Artifacts
Hundreds of items collected by amateur archaeologists and treasure hunters from the 1930s to the 1960s are being returned to Native American tribes for repatriation by Center of Southwest Studies. The items are in the Homer Root Ledger Collection, which includes 1,700 items. Hundreds of the items have been identified as funerary objects that came from ancient gravesites and are covered under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. http://bit.ly/2UFiKt9 – Durango Herald

Legal Scholar Publishes Review of National Monument Reductions
Newly published research by John Ruple, a research professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, contains the first and only comprehensive review of every prior national monument reductions that occurred as a result of presidential action. Ruple’s article, “The Trump Administration and Lessons Not Learned from Prior National Monument Modifications,” is out this month in the new print issue of the Harvard Environmental Law Review. The research is important because president Donald Trump’s authority to reduce the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments is the subject of ongoing litigation, said Ruple. http://bit.ly/2UJzRtK – University of Utah via Newswise

Staff Changes at tDAR
Digital Antiquity is pleased to announce some recent staffing changes.  In November 2018, our long serving Director of Technology, Adam Brin, accepted a new position at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA.  Digital Antiquity is a small team of highly skilled people who, together, have built an amazing online repository backed by sophisticated data management services.  None of that would have been possible without Adam’s work over the years. We will miss him, and wish him great success in his exciting new career with the Getty. http://bit.ly/2KlJVVS – tDAR

Archaeology Cafe (Phoenix): The Greater Gila River
Join us as on Tuesday, May 7, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Dr. Bill Doelle challenges us to think big with a presentation entitles “The Greater Gila River: Public Lands, Tribal Lands, and Our Connections to These Places.” Now home to nearly six million people, the Greater Gila River basin is tamed by dams and pumped such that stretches of its watercourses are usually dry. But it was not always this way. The river and its tributaries were once lifelines and travel corridors for diverse peoples of the southern Southwest. Tribal and public lands (National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and others) make up much of the river basin today. Dr. Doelle will explore the relationships of modern groups, including today’s tribes, to these lands. The presentation will also be streamed on Facebook Live beginning at 6:00 p.m. at Archaeology Southwest’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/ArchaeologySouthwest/. http://bit.ly/2ULOFIh – Archaeology Southwest

Meet the Author: Steve Lekson, Society for American Archaeology Meeting
Did you ever want to ask Steve Lekson a question about his take on Southwest archaeology? Attending Society of American Archaeology (SAA)? Then here’s your chance to get an answer straight from the man. Come to the University of Utah Press booth (601) Friday, April 12, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. for Stephen Lekson’s Q&A regarding his book A Study of Southwestern Archaeology and get your own copy signed. The three best questions will win a copy of the book. http://www.uofupress.com

Exhibition Announcement: Oblique Views
From April 9 to July 6, the Chandler Museum, 300 S. Chandler Village Drive, Chandler, AZ, will host Oblique Views: Archaeology, Photography, and Time. By displaying aerial photographs taken by Charles and Anne Lindbergh in 1929 alongside Adriel Heisey’s more recent rephotographs (near-exact duplicates) of the same landscapes, Oblique Views enables us to see how natural processes, technological and cultural developments, and population changes have impacted some of the past’s most special places. http://bit.ly/2UBvRLZ – Archaeology Southwest

Publication Announcement: “Home Away from Home”
“Home Away from Home: Ancestral Pueblo Fieldhouses in the Northern Rio Grande,” by Sean G. Dolan, Kari M. Cates, Cyler Norman Conrad, and Sandi Rae Copeland. Los Alamos National Laboratory. http://bit.ly/2UHGrB6

Event Opportunity, Tucson AZ
Presidio Museum Living History Day will be held on April 13 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Catalonian Volunteers, Dragoons, the Presidio soldier, the Mexican Army and the U.S. Cavalry…all were soldiers stationed in Tucson at different times. This month, we focus on the technology, tools and daily duties of each kind of soldier. http://www.TucsonPresidio.com

Workshop Opportunity: How Did People Haft a Knife?
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. Allen Denoyer will teach participants how to work with pitch, sinew, and cordage to haft a knife. April 20, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., $50 fee. http://bit.ly/2UHGTPH – Archaeology Southwest

Employment Seminar, San Diego Archaeological Center
The San Diego Archaeological Center invites those interested in working in the field of archaeology to hear cultural resource management (CRM), government, and academic archaeologists discuss job-seeking at the Employment Seminar held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 27. https://sandiegoarchaeology.org/employment-seminar/

Lecture Opportunity, Santa Fe NM
Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. John Kantner, RPA, Associate Vice-President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, University of North Florida; Author, “Great House Communities in the Chaco World,” in In Search of Chaco: New Approaches to an Archaeological Enigma. Kantner will give a lecture on April 15 at 6:00 p.m. at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the Ancient Sites Ancient Stories II Lecture Series held to honor and acknowledge The Archaeology Conservancy. Admission is by subscription or $15 at the door. No reservations are necessary. Refreshments are served. Seating is limited. Contact Connie Eichstaedt at tel: 505 366-2775; email: southwestseminar@aol.com; web: southwestseminars.org

Lecture Opportunities, Vail AZ
On Monday, May 15, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. archaeologist Allen Dart presents “Archaeology and Cultures of Arizona” for the Arizona Senior Academy at Academy Village. The free talk will summarize and interpret the state’s archaeological and historical cultures from 13,000 years ago to the present.

On Thursday, May 30, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. archaeologist Allen Dart presents “Ancient Native American Pottery of Southern Arizona” for the Arizona Senior Academy at Academy Village. In this free talk he will show digital images of Native American ceramic styles that characterized specific eras in Arizona prehistory and history from as early as 800 BC into the early 20th century and how archaeologists use pottery for dating archaeological sites and interpreting ancient lifeways.

Both talks will be held at Academy Village, 13715 E. Langtry Lane, in Vail, Arizona. Reservations requested: 520-647-0980 or info@arizonasenioracademy.org. http://www.asa-tucson.org/

We’re happy to help get the word out, but we’re not mind readers! Please submit news, book announcements, and events at this link for consideration: https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/submit-to-sat/

Questions? sat-editor@archaeologysouthwest.org