Bruce Babbit Advocates for a Major Push in Public Lands Protection

Bruce Babbit Advocates for a Major Push in Public Lands Protection
When a racist rancher in Nevada and his armed supporters can command headlines by claiming to own and control publicly owned lands, perhaps it’s time to remind Westerners about the history of the nation’s public-land heritage. Recall that it is we, the American people, who own the public lands that make up so much of our Western states. These great open spaces are the birthright of all of us, not just the residents of Nevada or Arizona or other Western states. The question of ownership of the public lands was settled by the founding fathers, in favor of you and me, by the Maryland compromise reached in 1781, and carried forward in the property clause of Article IV in the United States Constitution. http://bit.ly/1kxaMo1 – Tucson Weekly

Patrick Lyons Reflects on His First Year as Director of the Arizona State Museum
It’s been one full year since Dr. Patrick D. Lyons took the reins as director of the Arizona State Museum (ASM). “This time last year, I said it was my dream come true,” he related, sitting back in his chair at his desk. “I say that still today. I am living my dream.” Those of us who know him and work with him on a daily basis know that this is no exaggeration. The man loves his museum and loves his work.  http://bit.ly/1m3wqSd – Arizona State Museum

Poisoned Archaeological Collections Complicate Repatriation and Ethical Curation
In the 19th and 20th centuries, state and national museums used more than 90 different pesticides on artifacts to protect them from bugs and rodents. As a result, an estimated 80 percent of all U.S. ethnographic collections are contaminated with heavy metals, posing health dangers to staff, visitors and, since the 1992 passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), to tribes who’ve sought the safe return of artifacts. “It’s been the museum world’s dirty little secret for decades,” notes Peter Palmer, a San Francisco State University chemist and leading expert on the issue. http://bit.ly/RTTZEH – High Country News

Ancient Glyph Defaced in Southern Utah’s 9 Mile Canyon
The Bureau of Land Management is investigating a popular rock art panel that was vandalized in 9 Mile Canyon over Memorial Day weekend. Federal officials are trying to find the culprit while a Carbon County property owner claims a teenager confessed the crime to him. The “pregnant buffalo” depicts a large bison with a bison fetus inside of it. It was carved between 900 and 1250 A.D., during the Fremont period, archaeologists say. http://bit.ly/Sn80LP – Fox 13 Now.Com

Historic Structure Revealed in Wake of the Slide Fire
A couple of short stacks of logs that appeared to be intersecting at a right angle caught the eye of a firefighter battling the Slide fire in Arizona. An archaeologist with the crew confirmed what the firefighter suspected: The blaze had uncovered the ruins of a cabin at least a century old. “The finding itself was very subtle,” said Jeremy Haines, a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist. “It’s a collapsed, degraded cabin related to the earliest Euro-American settlement of this rugged, remote piece of Arizona.” http://lat.ms/1kxcFRx – LA Times

A Road Trip to the Hubble Trading Post
The past and present stand side by side at Hubbell Trading Post. The oldest operating trading post on the Navajo Reservation is equal parts museum, art gallery and general store, a place where Native Americans come to sell or trade blankets, rugs and jewelry for groceries, tools and clothes. Many of today’s customers are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who traded with John Lorenzo Hubbell, who bought the trading post in 1878. http://bit.ly/1iIsoxn – Arizona Republic

Lecture Opportunity- Prescott
At 7 p.m. Thursday June 19, archaeologist Allen Dart gives his free “Southwestern Rock Calendars and Ancient Time Pieces” presentation for the Arizona Archaeological Society’s Yavapai Chapter at the Smoki Museum Pueblo Building, 147 N. Arizona St., Prescott, Arizona. Cosponsored by Arizona Humanities, this program discusses the petroglyphs at Picture Rocks near Tucson, the architecture of the “Great House” at Arizona’s Casa Grande Ruins, other archaeological evidence of ancient southwestern astronomy and calendrical reckoning, and how these discoveries may have related to ancient Native American rituals. For details contact Julie Rucker at9 28-554-2745 or jpgallery@cableone.net.

Lecture Opportunity – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. Scott Ortman, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado and Former Director of Research, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center; and Omidyar Fellow, Santa Fe Institute; Author Winds From the North: Tewa Origins and Historical Archaeology, who will give a lecture What the Pueblos Can Teach Us About Economic Growth on June 16 at 6pm at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the annual Voices From the Past Lecture series held to honor the New Mexico History Museum. Admission is by subscription or $12 at the door. Seating is limited. No reservations are necessary and refreshments are served. Contact Connie Eichstaedt at 505 466-2775; email: southwestseminar@aol.com; website: http://bit.ly/YhJddr – Southwest Seminars

Lecture Opportunity – Verde Valley
Kennewick Man is the name for the skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, in 1996. It is one of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found; bone tests have shown it to date from 7300 to 7600 B.C.  The research team included Dr. Nancy Odegaard of the University of Arizona and Arizona State Museum, an expert in conservation.  Dr. Odegaard will give a presentation on “The Conservation Aspects of the Kennewick Man” on Tuesday, June 24 at 7:00 pm in the Sedona Ballroom of the Cliff Castle Casino Hotel, 555 W Middle Verde Rd., Camp Verde. Admission is free but a $5 donation per person is suggested to help offset the cost of the room rental.

Reminder – Archaeology Southwest Invites All to Opening of Chaco’s Legacy Exhibition
Now on display at Aztec Ruins National Monument and Salmon Ruins Museum, Chaco’s Legacy explores the rise and spread of a powerful ancient southwestern Pueblo society from New Mexico’s remote Chaco Canyon. Based in Archaeology Southwest’s latest research, the exhibition provides an intuitive vision of ancient Pueblo landscapes, sites, and artifacts through a virtual-reality game engine, Unity 3D. The National Science Foundation funded development of the exhibition, which will celebrate its grand opening on Thursday, June 5, 2014, 6:00–8:00 p.m., at Salmon Ruins Museum, 6131 Highway 64, Bloomfield, NM. To attend, please RSVP Kathleen Bader by email, kbader@archaeologysouthwest.org, or by phone, 520-882-6946 x 26.