Southwest Archaeology Today for August 4, 2005

Archaeology Making the News – a service of the Center for Desert Archaeology

– History may block freeway: Altars and burial grounds are located in the broad Gila River valley that runs south of Ahwatuke Foothills, which served for eons as a major passageway and home for prehistoric and modern Native Americans. For that reason, the Gila River Indian Community has been reluctant to offer it up as a site for the proposed South Mountain Freeway.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwatukee/articles/0802ar-gilaZ14.html

– Road to Chaco to be surfaced: The question of whether the road to Chaco Canyon should be paved or not is being settled in a huge transportation bill Congress just passed.
http://www.krqe.com/archives/expanded.asp?RECORD_KEY%5bNews%5d=ID&ID%5BNews%5D=11356
or
http://tinyurl.com/crtp5

– Public can now witness lunar standstill at Chimney Rock: Like visiting Chacoans 1,000 years ago may have, locals observed the crescent moon cut between the Chimney Rock spires for four minutes Tuesday morning.
http://www.durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&article_path=/news/05/news050803_2.htm
or
http://tinyurl.com/7ahp7

– Trekkers eager to be moonstruck: An ancient moon-watching pilgrimage that has not been made for nearly a millennium begins again on a high stony mesa in southwestern Colorado. This year, for the first time, after consultation with Pueblo tribes, the U.S. Forest Service is allowing people to resume the trek up narrow cliff trails to the mesa top to see an astronomical event called the lunar standstill.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_2909172?rss

– A Yaqui’s Marana: Animal spirits and living stars color: Pull your car up beside a quiet Marana cotton field at night and gaze at the darkened sky. What do you see? Pinprick lights? Orion’s Belt? Unfathomably faraway balls of blazing, gaseous matter?
http://www.explorernews.com/articles/2005/08/03/northwest_-_foothills/northwest01.txt
or
http://tinyurl.com/dgpue

– Bush returns 15,000 acres to Colorado River Tribe: More than 15,000 acres off Interstate 10 in western Arizona that were taken away from the Colorado River Indian Tribes’ reservation 90 years ago are being returned under a bill President Bush signed into law Tuesday.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0802indian-land-ON.html

– Federal legislation returns land to western Arizona tribe: A western Arizona Indian tribe is regaining a nearly 25-square-mile parcel of land that was taken away from its reservation 90 years ago amid tribal disputes with miners and cattlemen.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/breaking/080305tribal_land.php

– Big Game Hunters, Not Climate Change, Killed Off Sloths: Prehistoric big game hunters and not the last ice age are the likely culprits in the extinction of giant ground sloths and other North American great mammals such as mammoths, mastodons and saber-toothed tigers, says a University of Florida researcher.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/513584/?sc=rssn

– New theory on genesis of Mesoamerican culture: Analysis of 3,000-year-old pottery shards from the ancient Olmec capital of San Lorenzo contradicts the notion among some researchers that the Olmec civilization was the “mother culture” that laid the foundation for the Inca, Maya and other civilizations of…
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/02/MNG9GE1FLL1.DTL&feed=rss.news
or
http://tinyurl.com/9hfvq

– Novel technique offers new look at ancient diet dogma: A Penn State researcher is part of the team that developed techniques that have generated insights into dietary divergences between some of our human ancestors, allowing scientists to better understand the evolutionary path that led to the modern-day diets that humans consume.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-08/ps-nto080305.php

– Tooth Study Reveals Diets of Early Humans: Using new, microscopic technology to analyze dental wear-patterns, researchers have reconstructed the diets of two species of early humans.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0803_050803_hominindiet.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/8329c

– On Indian land, a twist on church vs. state: What lawmakers continue to look for are ways to balance science, cultural heritage, and Constitutional demands.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0804/p03s01-ussc.html

– From: Pamela Doninger [mailto:elroy31@hotmail.com]
Subject: preclovis artifacts being displayed: the Clovis in the southeast conference scheduled for oct. 26-29 is going to be unique this year. with many artifacts from the clovis culture being displayed there will also be what are believed to be the preclovis pieces found by dr. albert goodyear in s. carolina as well as a new collection never before seen. the doninger collection will consist of a wide array of stone tools and other artifacts from tennessee, some of which i belive have never been seen from any paleo site anywhere in the u.s. this collection truly resembles the older lithics found only in europe thus far thereby reinforcing the recent evidence of a preclovis occupation in the u.s. hope to see many of you there. rick d.

PECOS CONFERENCE – August 11-14, 2005
http://www.swanet.org/2005_pecos_conference/

JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS:
http://www.swanet.org/jobs.html
http://www.swanet.org/zarchives/jobs/jobs2005/aps080205.pdf
http://www.swanet.org/zarchives/jobs/jobs2005/srpmic080305.pdf