Preservation in Action at Cedar Mesa and Chaco

Efforts to Save Utah’s Cedar Mesa Reach a Crescendo
The gnats and mosquitos were out in force that mid-June evening at our campsite, as was the Indian paintbrush, the penstemon, globe mallow and other wildflowers whose names I don’t know. The long day’s last light slowly ran its fingers down the sinewy sandstone wave of Comb Ridge to the east, but the June heat persisted. My family and I had just spent several days in the canyons of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, an area that is mostly new to me. Now we were on Cedar Mesa, a place in which I spent a good deal of my youth, and which is now one of the battlefields in the war over what should be done with federal lands in the West. http://bit.ly/1Te7RVd – High Country News

Senator Tom Udall Tours Chaco Landscape
New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall and Department of the Interior Deputy Secretary Mike Connor hiked along the great houses of Chaco Culture National Historical Park on Monday to hear from park officials and tour the archaeological and cultural sites in the park. The park visit by Udall and Connor with officials from the park, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management occurred as the BLM works on a new draft amendment resource management plan for the region, which will guide the federal government’s regulations and leasing policies in the area for the oil and gas industry. http://bit.ly/1TehG5L – Farmington Times

Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and Representative Ben Ray Lujan’s Letter to Interior Secretary Jewell Requesting Protection of the Chaco Landscape
http://bit.ly/1Cj7hl6 – Scribd

Thirty Chaco Scholars Sign Letter to Interior Secretary Jewell
Tucked away among northwestern New Mexico’s sandstone cliffs and buttes are the remnants of an ancient civilization whose monumental architecture and cultural influences have been a source of mystery for years. Scholars and curious visitors have spent more than a century trying to unravel those mysteries and more work needs to be done. That’s why nearly 30 top archaeologists from universities and organizations around the nation called on the U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday to protect the area surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from oil and gas development. In a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, they talked about the countless hours they’ve spent in the field, the dozens of books they’ve published about the Chaco society and their decades of collective experience studying its connection to modern Native American tribes in the Southwest. They call Chaco a distinct resource. http://bit.ly/1dGb2Vz – Albuquerque Journal

Preservation Archaeology: Making a Difference on the Chaco Landscape
Archaeology Southwest’s Paul Reed writes: As many of you know, I’ve been actively engaged in protecting the Greater Chaco Landscape for much of the last year. Impacts to this amazing landscape from the development of oil-gas facilities in association with the Mancos Shale play could be severe. I think that our efforts, and those of our partners and other groups, are beginning to make a difference. http://bit.ly/1evHXx3 – Archaeology Southwest

Travelogue: Visiting the Places of the Ancient Pueblo World
As the setting sun turned the red rock of southern Utah to a deepening shade of pink, I set up camp below an ancient ruin tucked high into a cliff. My tent raised, I enjoyed a hot pasta dinner while contemplating what looked like a house 70 feet above from where I sat. Questions came to mind about the people who lived up there roughly 1,000 years ago: Why did they live up on a cliff? How did they get up and down? What drove them away? http://bit.ly/1KEh3kj – Gazette Extra