Call for Applicants – Center For Desert Archaeology 2012 Preservation Archaeology Fellowship

Call for Applicants – Center For Desert Archaeology 2012 Preservation Archaeology Fellowship
The Center for Desert Archaeology’s doctoral fellowship program is based on the premise that individuals who receive a doctorate in anthropology must be trained in a manner that provides them with maximum flexibility in a highly competitive, constantly changing job market. The program provides the opportunity and funding to complete a doctoral program of original research that expands the range of experience that is generally part of an academic program. https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/who-we-are/preservation-fellowship/

Almost Halfway to our Goal of $5,000 to Support Southwest Archaeology Today!
Many thanks to the 102 generous Southwest Archaeology Today subscribers who have given a total of $3065 in response to the online campaign! This invaluable support helps us continue to deliver SAT to more than 1,500 inboxes every Monday morning. If you have not yet joined your fellow readers in making a gift, please do so today. With only one week left in the campaign, we need everyone’s support to meet our $5,000 goal and continue providing you and others with this valuable online resource. Make your gift today at https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/how-to-help/sat/.

Bone Spear Point may Indicate Pre-Clovis Era Mastadon Hunters in the Pacific Northwest
A team of researchers, led by a Texas A&M archaeologist, has used a bone point fragment from an ancient mastodon rib to confirm that hunters roamed North America at least 800 years earlier than previously thought, the university said in a Thursday press release. By studying the tip of that fragment, which was found in a mastodon rib from a Washington-based archeological dig, Michael Waters, director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M, and his colleagues believe that it proves that humans were present there about 13,800 years ago. http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112406010/hunters-arrived-in-north-america-earlier-than-previously-thought/index.html

Scientific American Looks at the Mounting Evidence for Pre-Clovis Peopling of the Americas
In the sweltering heat of an early July afternoon, Michael R. Waters clambers down into a shadowy pit where a small hive of excavators edge their trowels into an ancient floodplain. A murmur rises from the crew, and one of the diggers gives Waters, an archaeologist at the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University, a dirt-smeared fragment of blue-gray stone called chert. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=first-americans-researchers-reconsider-peopling-new-world

Blanding Residents Plead for Support for the Edge of the Cedars Museum State Park
Residents in the vast southeastern Utah outback that once teemed with pre-Columbian Americans worry the heritage and rich culture of their homeland will be stolen twice: once by black-market American Indian-relic peddlers, and then by the state of Utah. During Gov. Gary Herbert’s visit to Blanding, one of the poorest regions of the state, residents pleaded with him to keep open the Edge of the Cedars Museum State Park. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52721603-90/state-email-island-blanding.html.csp

Archaeologists Uncover Seventeenth-century Cobble Street in Santa Fe
One of Santa Fe’s earliest streets and a possible plaster pit also dating from the 1600s were discovered by archaeologists involved in a completed downtown dig.  The state Office of Archaeological Studies has been exploring an area a couple of blocks east of the existing Santa Fe Plaza for Drury Southwest, a hotel chain that plans to redevelop the former St. Vincent Hospital complex.  http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/City-s-first-paved-street

Crow Canyon Research Programs Investigating the Origins of the Ancient Peoples of the Four Corners
Southwest Colorado is a mecca for archaeology buffs, with headliners Mesa Verde National Park, Hovenweep and Canyons of the Ancients national monuments and the Anasazi Heritage Center. In the middle of it all sits Crow Canyon, located just west of Cortez, a lesser-known institution that has spent the last 28 years conducting major archaeological research, teaching thousands of area schoolchildren and teachers and building bridges between the archaeological community and Native Americans. http://durangoherald.com/article/20111023/NEWS01/710239874/-1/s 

Participation Form for 2012 Arizona Archaeology and Heritage Month Events now Available
Dear Friends of Historic Preservation, attached please find the SHPO’s call for events and activities during the 2012 celebration of Arizona Archaeology and Heritage Awareness Month (AAHAM). These events will be published in the statewide Listing of Events brochure for the Month.  Please note the due date of November 15, 2011 for returning your AAHAM Participation Forms.  https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/sat/2012_AAHAM_events_form.doc – MS Word Document.

The Nature Conservancy Conserves More than Nature
Running a new water pipe to the caretaker’s cottage at The Nature Conservancy’s Emiquon preserve in central Illinois should have been a straightforward project. But one morning in February 2009, when staff digging a trench for the pipe began pulling up pottery fragments, animal teeth and mussel shells, things started to get interesting.  “We got the sense somebody had put that stuff there—even the shells were too far from the river,” says Tharran Hobson, a Conservancy restoration manager who was doubling as a plumber that day. Hobson took a handful of the detritus and drove a mile to the house of Alan Harn, an archaeologist with the nearby Dickson Mounds Museum who happened to be at home, painting his garage. One look at the sample was enough to make Harn drop his paintbrush and pick up his trowel. http://magazine.nature.org/features/protecting-nature-preserving-history.xml

New Post in Steve Lekson’s “Southwest in the World”
“Southwest in the World” is the working title of a book I’m writing, and the name of a web site that posts excerpts – draft sections – from the book. A new, fifth post “Cycles” explores cycles (and specifically Turchin cycles) as a preliminary to future discussions of warfare and collapse. Not very cheerful “coming attractions,” but as we shall see in the next post on warfare, there is Pinker-esque hope for the future. http://stevelekson.com

Could Exposure to Tar Explain the “Shrinking” of  Ancient Californian Peoples?
A long-term health decline—including a gradual shrinking—among prehistoric Indians in California may be linked to their everyday use of tar, which served as “superglue,” waterproofing, and even chewing gum, scientists say. Naturally occurring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in bitumen tar could at least partially explain a decrease in skull size over a period of about 7,500 years in the Chumash people, a recent study proposes. Decreased head size usually reflects decreased stature, which is a biological indicator of a population’s declining health. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111006-tar-toxic-pollution-chumash-health-indians-science-heads/

Todd Bostwick Selected to Direct Verde Valley Archaeological Center
Since the idea was first dreamed up, the founders of the Verde Valley Archaeology Center have realized that if they wanted to be taken seriously, they needed to hire a director with stature in the archaeology community. That wish came true this week when the center’s board of directors accepted an offer from Todd Bostwick, PhD, to become the center’s first executive director.  http://campverdebugleonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubsectionID=1&ArticleID=32317

Lecture Opportunity
The Hisatsinom Chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society is pleased to present Kris Arrington to discuss New Discoveries at Cannonball Pueblo on Tuesday, November 1 at 7:00 PM at the Cortez Cultural Center.  In her presentation, Kris will discuss her 2008-10 survey work on Cannonball Mesa that has revealed a cluster of Puebloan sites, including water control and storage features, in the area proximate to the PIII Cannonball Pueblo ruin, as well as the location of Morley’s 1908 field station.  Kris is a retired BLM Archaeologist in SW Colorado.  Contact Bob Bernhart @ 970-739-6772 with questions about this, or any, program.

Lecture Opportunity – Tempe
The Iconic Hayden Mill,  presented on Wednesday, Nov. 9 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Tempe History Museum, 809 E. Southern Ave.  Standing at the gateway to downtown Tempe, Hayden Mill has stood as a city icon for over a century. Since 1998, the site has been unoccupied and fenced off from the public, but still possesses a history greatly associated with the development of Tempe. Scott Solliday, a historian from Aztec Engineering, will be present to share the history of Tempe’s most iconic structure.

Lecture Opportunity – Tubac
Author Carolyn O’Bagy Davis will give a presentation to the Santa Cruz Valley Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society on November 10, 2011, 7 PM, at the North County Facility at 50 Bridge Road in Tubac.  Her topic will be “Hopi Summer and the Hopi People.” The presentation is free and open to the public

Employment Opportunity (Phoenix)
Arizona State Lands Department has an opening for a full-time Cultural Resources Specialist (Archeological Projects Specialist) position for the Environmental Resources & Trespass Section on www.azstatejobs.gov. If you’re interested in applying or learning more about this opening, you can access the posting on the state job site using keyword search “Land.” The first review of resumes for this position is scheduled for Friday, November 11th. Please refer friends and family that might be a good fit for this position to the state job website as well. If you have any questions, contact Stephen K. Ross at sross@land.az.govhttps://secure.azstatejobs.gov/pljb/global_jsp/applicant/DisplayJob/JobDetails.jsp?display=1&index=0&id=41847

Archaeology of the Persian Gulf Featured on the Archaeology Channel
In the most recent installment of the Video News from TAC, you’ll see excavations at a Persian Gulf fort, explore underground spaces in Alexandria, Egypt, and witness specialists making perfect casts of human fossils.  See these stories in the October 2011 edition of this monthly half-hour show, available now on our nonprofit streaming-media Web site, The Archaeology Channel – http://www.archaeologychannel.org – as well as on cable TV in cities across the US.

Thanks to Adrianne Rankin for contributions to today’s newsletter.