The Case for Preserving Places of the Past

The Case for Preserving Places of the Past
Archeologists and cultural experts define significant cultural places in various ways. Peter Nabokov, a professor of American Indian Studies and World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, puts it this way: “Their spirits of place dwelled among, could be identified with, or were embodied by stars, planets, clouds, mountains, caves, trees, lakes, rivers, springs, rocks and plants. The linkages between these spirits, their habitats and early Indian communities determined everyone’s health and success or failure in life,” Nabokov wrote in “Where Lighting Strikes,” published in 2006. Other anthropologists list canyons, dawn and other things. http://bit.ly/16FX7w0 – Arizona Republic

Oil and Gas Drilling Closes in on the Chacoan Landscape
The oil and gas industry in New Mexico is a big deal. It supports the state budget with hundreds of millions of dollars each year. But there are impacts, too – on air quality, water, public health and even cultural sites. In the first installment of KUNM’s new series Drilling Deep, we explore northwestern New Mexico – and the Chacoan landscape. http://bit.ly/1ATYpwg – HUMN Public Radio

The Impact of Flaring Methane on Chaco’s Skies
The morning I flew out of the Farmington airport with Bruce Gordon, from ecoFlight, I had to leave Albuquerque long before the light of dawn. And while I didn’t have much time for sight-seeing, I did take a few minutes to stop along the road in Lybrook, New Mexico, where drillers were flaring off excess gases from the oil wells. Even in the daylight, the scene along Highway 550 is pretty dramatic these days. http://bit.ly/1AKLe0M – HUMN Public Radio

Groups Protest Sale of Gas Leases in Ancient Landscapes of Southern Utah
With the Bureau of Land Management poised to offer new oil and gas leases in the heart of southeast Utah’s archaeological stronghold, various groups are demanding the agency reconsider 10 parcels slated for auction in February because it has not adequately documented cultural resources on them. “These parcels are located amidst one of the densest concentrations of cultural resources in Utah, if not the American Southwest. These cultural resources are sacred to several Native American tribes, including the Hopi,” wrote Amy Cole, of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in a protest to the BLM. http://bit.ly/16FZNd2 – Salt Lake Tribune

Tribes Differ in Approaches to Contested Auctions of Sacred Items: Navajo Nation Purchases 7 Objects at Most Recent Auction
When diplomacy and a plea to return sacred ceremonial masks to an American Indian tribe in the United States failed, officials from the Navajo Nation traveled to the Paris auction house selling the items and started bidding for them. They fended off a French art collector Monday, winning seven masks for more than $9,000. Navajo Vice President Rex Lee Jim said the Navajo delegation was unable to determine the exact provenance of the artifacts but said they had to face the reality of the auction and buy them. http://bit.ly/13peizI  – Associated Press via Talking Points Memo

Fallout from the Cultural Disaster at Apache Leap
Native American Tribes, especially the Apache, archaeologist and other conservationists are upset about a controversial land exchange between the federal government and a copper mining company, Resolution Copper Mining. The rider was inserted into the defense spending bill the bill necessary to fund the military, and is likely to pass any day now. The land set to be given over is 980 hectares of Arizona’s Tonto National Forest containing Oak Flat with many petroglyphs, Hohokam sites, the best documented Apache archaeological sites and many scared places. http://bit.ly/1raS7Zh – The Archaeological Conservancy

Manhattan Project among Seven New National Parks Funded in New Federal Budget
Working in secret during World War II, scientists J. Robert Oppenheimer, Maria Goeppert Mayer and others led thousands of workers in Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Hanford, Washington, to build a nuclear reactor and assemble the atomic bomb. The legislation authorizes the proposed park, which would be located in all three states. http://cnn.it/1zRAP5n – CNN

2014 Was a Banner Year for Research on the First Inhabitants of the Americas
A long-dead but undeniably colorful cast of characters provided new insights this year into the genetic legacy, geographic range and hunting habits of ancient North America’s Clovis people. ClovisFest 2014 began with an analysis of DNA from a 1-year-old Clovis baby who died over 12,500 years ago (SN: 3/22/14, p. 6). The child’s DNA indicates that Clovis people, whose culture peaked roughly 13,000 to 12,600 years ago, were ancestors of today’s Native Americans. http://bit.ly/1AuDwJT – Science News

Society for American Archaeology Offers New Archaeology Scholarships for Historically Underrepresented Groups
The SAA Historically Underrepresented Groups Scholarship (HUGS) helps increase the number of under-represented minorities obtaining degrees in archaeology. It provides funding to minority archaeology students, helping them enhance their education and successfully prepare for a variety of careers in archaeology and heritage management. The scholarship is overseen by the Minority Scholarships Committee of the SAA. http://bit.ly/1sYPueq – Society for American Archaeology

Teachers Encouraged to Apply for 3-Week Workshop at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Join us at Crow Canyon in southwestern Colorado for an extraordinary professional development opportunity for educators. The program is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which provides stipends to help cover expenses. The faculty includes educators, archaeologists, and American Indian scholars. Information about all 2015 NEH Summer Institutes and Workshops is available on the NEH website.  http://bit.ly/1zRwdfu – Crow Canyon Archaeological Center

Time Stands Still at Hueco Tanks State Park
For more than 10,000 years, prehistoric people, Spanish explorers, soldiers, Native Americans, settlers, stagecoach drivers and modern-day travelers have traversed the natural pass along the Rio Grande that slices through the Rocky Mountains’ southernmost extension to reach their destinations. On their way, many stopped at a special place. http://bit.ly/1CjBaQq – El Paso Times

“Things are a Mess” at Glen Canyon
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is a mess. Amazingly, it’s not so much from the reservoir that drowned it 50 years ago; it’s because of what the park’s visitors are doing to it today. I say this because I’ve spent most of my career photographing wilderness areas in Grand Canyon, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument and the greater Glen Canyon area, including Lake Powell. But at Glen Canyon the trash and vandalism has become so horrendous that I now see it as a second wave of sabotage. http://bit.ly/1zRwAGU – High County News

A Clash of Visions at the Grand Canyon
Renae Yellowhorse stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon, 26 bumpy miles across the Painted Desert from the nearest paved road, not a glint of civilization in sight. Ms. Yellowhorse, 52, who has lived her whole life on this Navajo land, cast an arm over the gulf sweeping out to the horizon, pointing to where the Colorado River and the Little Colorado meet in a dazzling burst of deep blue 3,000 feet below. “This is where the tram would go,” she said. “This is the heart of our Mother Earth. This is a sacred area. It is going to be true destruction.” http://nyti.ms/1zl8hlB – New York Times

The Guardian Presents a Confused Account of Repatriation at Black Mesa
In 1967 the Peabody coal company came to the Navajo and Hopi reservations in northern Arizona and Utah to excavate a strip mine – but the land it leased from the tribes was on an ancient tribal burial ground. So, as required by law, it hired archeologists and for the next 17 years a dig known as the Black Mesa archeological project – the largest in North American history – unearthed more than one million artefacts, including the remains of 200 Native Americans.  http://bit.ly/1sXbyWx – The Guardian

President Pardons Man Guilty of Archaeological Crime
President Barack Obama pardoned a Colorado man Wednesday who was convicted of a crime in Utah nearly 18 years ago. David Neil Mercer, of Grand Junction, pleaded guilty to violating the archaeological resources act in January 1997. A federal judge sentenced him to 36 months’ probation and ordered him to pay a $2,500 fine and $1,437 in restitution. His probation was terminated in April 1998. http://bit.ly/1wZY4HS – Deseret News

University of New Mexico Field School in Paleoindian Archaeology
The University of New Mexico Department of Anthropology and Office of Contract Archaeology are offering an archaeological field school at the Water Canyon Paleoindian site near Socorro, NM in the Summer of 2015. We have five major research and/or methodological goals for the upcoming field season, including: 1) the continued investigation of the Locus 1 Late Paleoindian component; 2) the investigation of the Cody Complex manifestations in Loci 4 and 5; 3) the investigation of the possible Clovis camp location on the abandoned terrace of Locus 3; 4) http://bit.ly/1GJPZv9 – University of New Mexico

A Call for Help 
SAT readers recently helped preserve the ancient Hohokam village called Marana Mound, now we have a chance to build a new preservation partnership for Tumamoc Hill, an Early Agricultural Period trincheras site adjacent to down Tucson.  With a short email, you can help guide a federal construction project away from an important place of the past. bit.ly/ASW_Tumamoc – Archaeology Southwest

Thanks to Al Dart for calling attention to the preservation opportunity on Tumamoc Hill.