Southwest Archaeology Today for Oct 12, 2006

Archaeology Making the News – A Service of the Center for Desert Archaeology

– Educational Materials Developed for the 40th Anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act: The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), working with The History Channel and the Newspaper In Education (NIE) Institute, has created a 20-page newspaper supplement and companion document celebrating and explaining the importance of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) to commemorate its 40th anniversary. There are 2 documents available – a 20-page document and a 44-page document that includes historic preservation stories by state. The 2 documents are available at:
http://www.achp.gov/NIE

– The Impact of Forest Fires on Archaeological Site Discovery: Margaret Hangan finds history in ashes. As a Forest Service archaeologist, she scours the smoldering moonscapes left by wildfires for signs of long-gone civilizations.
http://tinyurl.com/y8hh4h – The Monterey Herald

– Historic Preservation District Designation Controversy in Tempe: The residents of Tempe’s Maple-Ash neighborhood have been drawn together by their love of historic homes set among grassy lots and big shade trees. It’s one of the East Valley’s most beloved historic areas and perhaps best known for the popular Casey Moore’s pub.
But only the bar is officially recognized as a historic place. And a push to make the rest of the neighborhood historic has triggered one of the ugliest battles the picturesque neighborhood has endured. On one side, some neighbors want a historic designation that would make it harder to change or destroy old homes built from the early 1900s to the 1950s. On the other side, residents want to keep their freedom to expand their homes or even tear them down to build condominiums.
http://tinyurl.com/y2tyo7 – Red Orbit

– Lecture on Otero Mesa by Richard Chapman Scheduled for October 25th (Albquerque): Richard Chapman, director of the Office of Contract Archeology, a program within the University of New Mexico’s Maxwell Museum, will present “Otero Mesa: An Illustrated Tour of the Otero Triangle” on Wednesday, Oct. 25, at 7 p.m. in Anthropology Lecture Hall rm. 163. This installment of the Maxwell Museum Southwest Lecture Series focuses on the results of preliminary research into the 12,000-year span of human interaction with the varied Otero Mesa environment.
http://www.unm.edu/~market/cgi-bin/archives/001493.html

– Arizona Archaeological Expo Planning Meeting Scheduled for Oct 26th: The second Archaeology Expo planning meeting for the 2007 Arizona Archaeology and Heritage Awareness Month is scheduled for Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 12:30 p.m. At
Arizona State Parks, First Floor Conference Room 1300 W. Washington, Phoenix. Please come and share your ideas as the State Historic Preservation Office/Arizona State Parks continues planning for the 2007 Arizona Archaeology Expo that will be held on March 16-17, 2007 at Yuma Crossing State Historic Park in Yuma, Arizona. Come and exchange ideas with the various partners; discuss programming, publicity, lay out and organization, sponsors, funding, off-site activities, etc. We value our partnerships with you, and hope to see you at this meeting and at future planning efforts for AAHAM public programming. For More Information, Please Contact: Ann Howard, Public Archaeology Programs Manager, SHPO, 602/542-7138, ahoward@pr.state.az.us

– Rock art and the Atom Bomb: The latest video feature on our nonprofit streaming-media Web site, The Archaeology Channel examines the setting for the first atomic blast. The threat of nuclear weapons literally exploded onto the world scene during World War II when the United States tested the first nuclear device. The irony of the test site location, in the heartland of traditional Puebloan Culture, prompted the imaginative production of Ground Zero/Sacred Ground.
http://www.archaeologychannel.org

– Associate Director of the Cub Scouts Sentenced to Year’s Probation for Trespass in Canyon De Chelly: — A national Boy Scout executive has been sentenced to a year’s probation for illegally entering a northern Arizona archaeological site. Steel, 58, pleaded guilty Friday to entering canyons at Canyon de Chelly National Monument without a guide and to entering archaeological ruins, according to a federal prosecutor.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/28994.php

– New Grants for Old Pueblo Archaeology: Old Pueblo Archaeology Center has been awarded grants of $5,500 from the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona, $3,006 from the Joseph and Mary Cacioppo Foundation, and $1,000 apiece from Long Realty Cares Foundation and the Jostens Foundation (Minneapolis) to provide opportunities for underprivileged children to participate in its OPEN2 archaeology discovery program. The grants will be used to provide scholarships for whole classrooms of needy schoolchildren to attend Old Pueblo’s educationally enriching OPEN2 program, which provides kids with a hands-on learning experience at a full-scale replica of a prehistoric Hohokam Indian archaeological site. The scholarships are to cover the fees Old Pueblo normally must charge for classrooms to receive an outreach visit to the school and the hands-on field trip to the OPEN2 simulated dig site.