BLM Changes Position on Leasing within Chaco Buffer Zone

BLM Changes Position on Leasing within Chaco Buffer Zone
The Bureau of Land Management no longer opposes an effort by members of the New Mexico congressional delegation that would ban oil, gas and other mineral leasing within a 10-mile buffer zone around Chaco Culture National Historical Park. BLM sent U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich a letter notifying him of its change of position on the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act of 2019. It said Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had instructed the agency to draft a Resource Management Plan that includes an alternative reflecting the views of tribal leaders, “which are similar to the proposed legislative boundaries in HR 2181 (the House version of the act).” Bernhardt had already directed BLM to defer leasing within the proposed zone for a year. http://bit.ly/2MGsujO – Albuquerque Journal

Commentary: Monument Advisory Committee for Reduced Bears Ears Brings out Rubber Stamp
Over the last two days, Friends of Cedar observed the first and only meeting of the Monument Advisory Committee for the reduced Bears Ears National Monument that will occur before a final Monument Management Plan is released. Unlike successful advisory committees around the country that meet numerous times before a plan is released, this committee was not given a real opportunity to shape the plan. Rather, we believe the Administration stood up the group solely to check a procedural box in the legal process. In the end, the Administration received a rubber stamp from the committee in favor of what we have called a plan for a “Monument in Name Only” – one that lacks the kinds of protections afforded to other Monuments and National Conservation Lands around the United States. http://bit.ly/2MClV1M – Josh Ewing and the Friends of Cedar Mesa

Video Coverage: Utah Diné Bikéyah Shares Footage of Monument Advisory Committee Meeting
In case you missed the Bears Ears National Monument Advisory Committee (MAC) meeting earlier this week, we have video coverage of the two-day meeting on our Utah Diné Bikéyah YouTube Channel. The videos include voices from Jonah Yellowman, our spiritual advisor and board member, and Cynthia Wilson, our traditional foods program director. The pair, along with a few others, told the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that its 15-appointees to the MAC consists entirely of members who were vocally against Bears Ears or have been silent on the issue. Nobody who holds a vision for activating this cultural landscape through Native culture was appointed. http://bit.ly/2MJoYp0 – Utah Diné Bikéyah; videos at http://bit.ly/2MCsqSe

Commentary and Travelogue: Inspiration and Tension in Bears Ears
“Bears Ears”—named after two bluffs that stick up on the horizon when viewed from Cedar Mesa—entered the present-day national consciousness on December 28, 2016, when President Obama designated 1.35 million acres as a national monument, following the proposal of a coalition of five Native American tribes. The land already belonged to the public, managed mostly by the Bureau of Land Management and partly by the US Forest Service, but monument designation gave the area greater protection, along with resources for surveying and studying the innumerable archeological sites in the area. Perhaps most important, the monument designation prevents new leases for natural resource extraction. Land use rights that existed at the time of the designation, such as grazing, are grandfathered in and allowed to continue. http://bit.ly/2MFtRzt – Sarah Lavender Smith in the Runner’s Trip

Why We Must Save Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
David Polly, from Indiana University, the immediate past president of the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontologists, is equally worried. “A national monument is something that is established specifically to conserve resources that are historical or architecturally or scientifically important. It adds literal, physical protection,” he says. “All the Triassic has been cut out and a lot of the earlier half of the Cretaceous has been cut out.” Polly estimates that at least a third of the finds over the past 20 years in the GSENM would never have been discovered if it weren’t for the designation. http://bit.ly/2MGB4Py – Cosmos

Commentary: People Needed to Store Things
Recently a movement has developed that encourages us to de-clutter our homes, to empty out our closets of things that “do not bring us joy.” For the people who lived in Arizona before the Historic period (AD 1694), this was less of a problem. People had fewer possessions, and the ones that they had usually did not take up a lot of space. But people still needed to store things. https://desert.com/storage/ – J. Homer Thiel at Desert Archaeology, Inc.

Preservation Archaeology Field School Student Blog Posts
In June and July, Southwest Archaeology Today will be sharing posts written by students attending the Archaeology Southwest/University of Arizona field school in southwest New Mexico. We hope you enjoy following along with their experiences in their own words.

“The dome above our heads featured remnants of thumbprint decorations that would have been a focal point of the choir loft for the day. As I studied the prints further, I reflected on the fact that each print was made by a living, breathing person.” – Esteban Jasso (Cochise College), A San Xavier Legacy, http://bit.ly/2JZOOmq

“Our site visits throughout Tucson would’ve been incredible on their own, yet it was the tour guides that left the most lasting impression on me.” – Kailey Loughran (University of Vermont), New Places, New Faces, http://bit.ly/2K11lpJ

“To see the same types of by-products that I knock off stones come out of a screen from a site hundreds of years old is a feeling that I had to experience myself to fully understand.” – Chris Fuchs (Washington College), Treasures in the Screen, http://bit.ly/2KH2hiC

Job Opportunity, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM
The Archaeology Program at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has a job opening for a current graduate student (in a Master’s or PhD program), or a post-master’s student (within 3 years of receiving a Master’s degree). Students must either be currently enrolled in a masters or doctoral program, or have graduated with a masters since 2016 to be eligible to apply. Students must be in an archaeology, anthropology or a related field of study. The position is expected to last 1 year, with the potential for a second year depending on performance and funding. Too learn more about the expectations and requirements for this position, visit http://bit.ly/2MJzpsG

Tour Opportunity, Tucson AZ
From 8:00 a.m. to noon Saturday, July 20, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center offers its Archaeology, Paleontology, and Environmental Sciences Laboratories Tour starting at 100 S. Avenida del Convento, Tucson. The tour will visit the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, which has been on the forefront of paleontological and desert ecological research since 1903; and the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, which has been conducting research in archaeology, astronomy, and environmental sciences since 1937. Reservations and $25 donation prepayment required by 5 p.m. July 17. 520-798-1201 or info@oldpueblo.org. http://bit.ly/2MJDgGa

Lecture Opportunity, Springerville AZ
At 7:00 p.m. Monday July 15 archaeologist Allen Dart presents “Ancient Southwestern Native American Pottery” at the Springerville Heritage Center, 418 E. Main St., Springerville, Arizona, for the Arizona Archaeological Society’s Little Colorado River Chapter, cosponsored by Arizona Humanities. Mr. Dart will show over 140 images of Native American ceramic vessels that characterized specific peoples and eras in the U.S. Southwest prior to about 1450, and will discuss how archaeologists use pottery to date archaeological sites and interpret ancient lifeways. 520-730-1871 or bev.redsun@gmail.com.

Lecture Opportunities at the Preservation Archaeology Field School, Cliff NM
The public is invited to a month-long series of lectures at the headquarters of the Archaeology Southwest/University of Arizona field school, 8179 Hwy 180 W, Cliff NM 88028. Look for the cream building with blue portable toilets on the north side of Hwy 180 just east of Shields Canyon Road and the highway yard. This is 2.2 miles west of the 180-211 junction in Cliff. All presentations will begin at 7:00 p.m. https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/events/

June 12, Kelsey Hanson, Behind the Scenes at El Morro: Collaborative Efforts to Rewrite National Register Listings
June 18, John Welch, Where Have All the Peaceful Farmers Gone? Later Prehistoric Tactical Sites of the Upper Salt River Watershed
June 23, Karen Adams, Ancient Plant Domestication and Plant Management in the U.S. Southwest
June 27, Maxwell Forton, Shield Rock Art of Tsegi Canyon
July 1, Allen Denoyer, The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly Mule Creek Obsidian

Editors’ note: June 8, 2019 marked the 113^th anniversary of the signing of the Antiquities Act. If you’d like to contact your representatives in Congress to show your support for legislation that would protect the Antiquities Act and protect existing national monuments, visit this link at Monuments for All: https://monumentsforall.org/tell-congress/

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