Groundbreaking Research on Post-Contact Demography Highlights Population Decline at Jemez

Groundbreaking Research on Post-Contact Demography Highlights Population Decline at Jemez
In the 1500s, the ponderosa pine forests of Jemez province in New Mexico were home to between 5000 and 8000 people. But after Europeans arrived in the area, the native population plummeted by more than 80%, probably because of a series of devastating epidemics. A new study suggests the crash took place 100 years after the first contact with Europeans. It also suggests that the sudden drop in the local population had dramatic ecological effects, including an increase in forest fires. http://bit.ly/1UAE3lS – Science

The Professor, the Pueblo, and Professional Ethics in Cultural Representation
From the moment he picked his way through the crowd and took the stage at Collected Works this fall, it was clear that Peter Nabokov was prepared to face public criticism. Typically, at these events at the go-to local bookstore in a town full of eager writers, the author takes the stage, reads for a few minutes, answers a few softball questions, signs books, shakes hands and says good night. But the air in the store that evening was heavy with tension. Nabokov, a tenured professor in UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures, had prepared two books about Acoma Pueblo with the publishing behemoth Penguin—and members of Acoma, who made up roughly half the crowd, were not happy about it. http://bit.ly/1QAXlGB – Santa Fe Reporter

School for Advanced Research Launches Impressive Website to Share Research on Arroyo Hondo
About 1300 C.E., a small pueblo located minutes south of present day Santa Fe, N.M., rapidly transformed from a 100-room hamlet to a 1000-room pueblo boomtown. Extensive archaeological research at Arroyo Hondo Pueblo, directed by Douglas Schwartz, a University of New Mexico alumnus, disclosed wide-ranging details about its origin, rapid growth, the inhabitants’ way of life, pathology, spirituality and its period of severe climate change and regional violence. After 125 years, these forces intertwined to cause the town’s demise. http://bit.ly/1SkTbX5 – University of New Mexico

Check Out Arroyo Hondo.org
About 1300 C.E., a small pueblo, located just south of present day Santa Fe, New Mexico, rapidly transformed from a one hundred room hamlet to a one thousand-room pueblo boomtown. Extensive archaeological research at Arroyo Hondo Pueblo disclosed wide-ranging details about its origin, rapid growth, the inhabitants’ way of life, pathology, and spirituality, during a period of severe climate change, and regional violence. After 125 years, these forces were intertwined in the town’s demise. Arroyo Hondo Pueblo characterizes the emergence of a new architectural style that helped set in motion the rise of the Classic Rio Grande pueblo pattern. http://www.arroyohondo.org

Sapiens – A New Website to Share Anthropology with the Public Launches
Sapiens: An editorially independent publication of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. http://www.sapiens.org

The BLM has Announced Plans to Allow Target Shooting on 98 percent of Sonoran Desert National Monument
Federal officials are moving forward with a proposal to allow target shooting on more than 470,000 acres of the Sonoran Desert National Monument – a stark change from a 2012 plan that would have limited shooting to just 84 acres. The Bureau of Land Management proposal, which started a 60-day comment period last week, was seen as a “frustrating” reversal, according to the environmental groups that had sued to stop what they see as threats to natural and cultural assets in the park. http://bit.ly/1NJQN3V – Cronkite News

Announcement of the BLM’s Plan to Allow Target Shooting on SDNM
http://bit.ly/201oiGa – Federal Register

Turns out the Story of Those Viable 800-Year-old Squash Seeds Circulating on Facebook May Not Be Exactly True
Canadian Mennonite University made headlines this fall when it was revealed that workers at the CMU Farm, in collaboration with members of the Métis community, had successfully grown an ancient variety of squash from seeds shared with them by the White Earth Seed Library in Minnesota. The story that accompanied the “Gete-Okosomin” squash seeds was that they were found in a clay ball at an archaeological excavation near the Wisconsin-Illinois border. It went on to suggest that the dating of the clay ball indicated that the seeds were more than 800 years old. The story captured the imagination of seed savers and gardeners across the continent. It is a good story, but is it true? http://bit.ly/1PrwbTC – Mennonite World Journal

Verde Valley Archaeology Center Launches Self-Guided Tour of Sinagua Archaeology
The Verde Valley Archaeology Center is developing the Sinagua Trail Self-Guided Tour.  The Sinagua Trail is the name given to a circular loop of archaeological sites in the Verde Valley first suggested by Coconino National Forest archaeologist Peter J. Pilles, Jr.  The Center has taken on this project in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Yavapai-Apache Nation.   This loop, brimming with archeological artifacts, is believed to have been important to the Sinagua who lived in the Verde Valley from around 800 to 1425 A.D. http://bit.ly/20grrHp – Verde Valley Archaeology Center

Colorado Historic Preservation Awards Announced
Leadville Mayor Jamie Stuever and a local development group lead a list of six organizations to be recognized for preserving Colorado’s diverse past, History Colorado announced Wednesday. Stuever, the city of Leadville, and the Overland Property group are to receive the 14th annual governor’s award for historic preservation for their work rehabilitating the Tabor Grand Hotel into 37 affordable-housing apartments, History Colorado said in a news release. http://bit.ly/1nGtXFU – Denver Post via the Durango Herald

New Paths to Mesa Verde?
The Paths to Mesa Verde project would provide 16 miles of multimodal linkages between Mancos, Mesa Verde National Park, Cortez High School, Southwest Colorado Community College, Phil’s World mountain bike trails system, and the Montezuma County fairgrounds. http://bit.ly/1WVn677 – Cortez Journal

Lecture Opportunity – Grand Junction
On February 16, the  Colorado Archaeological Society Grand Junction Chapter Will feature Dr. Douglas O’Rourke will lecture on the Archeology of Ancient Greece (and may be able to take questions about some of the atrocities happening to archaeological sites throughout the eastern Mediterranean with the ongoing wars). This talk is free and open to the public. It will be on the Colorado Mesa University campus, Houston Hall Room 138. 7:00-9:00 PM

Lecture Opportunity – Prescott
Father Kino: Journey to Discovery by Dr. Barbara Jaquay will be presented at the Prescott Public Library, 215 E. Goodwin Street, Prescott, Arizona on Thursday, February 4, 2016 at 5:00 p.m. World geographer Dr. Jaquay is a leading Kino expert and her engaging Kino presentations give insight into the courage and genius of Kino. Kino is the State of Arizona’s official heroic representative to our nation and is honored with a statue in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall of Heroes. More information on Kino explorations at http://padrekino.com/kino-legacy/explorer/ Free admission. Talk funded by the Arizona Humanities, Arizona’s affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Lecture Opportunity – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Paul Tso (Hopi), Katsina Carver, Shungopavi Village, Second Mesa, who will give a talk Culture and History of Hopi Katsinam (Kachinas) Feb. 1 at 6:00 p.m. at Hotel Santa Fe in the Ancient Sites Ancient Stories Lecture Series. Admission is by subscription or $12 at the door. No reservations are necessary. Refreshments are served. Seating is limited. Contact Connie Eichstaedt tel: 505 466-2775; email: southwest seminar@aol.com; http://bit.ly/YhJddr– Southwest Seminars

Lecture Opportunity – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. Giday Wolde Gabriel, Geologist, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Co-Leader, Middle Awash Ethiopian Research Project; Co-Editor (w/Y. Haile-Selassie), Ardipithecuskadabba: Late Miocene Evidence from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia who will give a talk Our Ancient Ancestors: Hominids of East Africa Feb. 8 at 6:00 p.m. at Hotel Santa Fe in the Ancient Sites Ancient Stories Lecture Series. Admission is by subscription or $12 at the door. No reservations are necessary. Refreshments are served. Seating is limited. Contact Connie Eichstaedt tel: 505 466-2775; email: southwest seminar@aol.com; website: http://bit.ly/YhJddr – Southwest Seminars

Lecture Opportunity – Scottsdale
Desert Foothills Chapter – AAS presents, on February 10th, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., at no charge, Tales from the Dark Side: Cave Archaeology in Western Belize and its Implications for the Decline of Maya Civilization by Dr. Jaime Awe.  The meetings is at the Foothills Community Foundation (Holland Community Center) 34250 North 60th Street, Building B, Scottsdale AZ 85266 (just south of Carefree Highway). http://bit.ly/1aYMEY2 -Desert Foothills Chapter of the Arizona Archaeology Society

Lecture Opportunity – Taos
The Taos Archaeological Society is pleased to present Victoria Riley Evans, Anthropology Laboratory Manager at New Mexico Highlands University and Adjunct Instructor for Anthropology Classes, who will lecture on The Burial Artifacts of Two Disturbed Graves in Roy, New Mexico, on Tuesday, February 9, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. at the Kit Carson Electric Board Room, 118 Cruz Alta Road, Taos. Contact Chris Riveles @575-776-1005 for questions or further information.

Living History – Tucson
The Tucson Presidio Trust is hosting Living History Day on Saturday, February 13, 2016, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at 196 N. Court Avenue.  The Presidio Museum will present a cavalcade of historic demonstrators to celebrate the 102^nd year of Arizona Statehood. The Spanish Barb, Arizona’s official state horse, will be visiting, as will the types of saddles used at the time Arizona became a state.  An early-1900s naturalist will also be on hand discussing science in the early statehood era. The Presidio will also be bustling with demonstrations of children’s games, candle making, storytelling, and fresh baked bread to sample. Soldiers will practice their drills and fire a four-pound bronze cannon, a replica of the cannons used at the Presidio in the late 1700s. Regular adult admission is $3, children under age 15 free. Parking is also free on Saturdays. Contact the Presidio Park at 520-837-8119 or see http://tucsonpresidio.com/.

Lecture Opportunity – Tucson
At 1:30 p.m. February 8th, archaeologist Allen Dart presents Southwestern Rock Calendars and Ancient Time Pieces at Pima County Public Library’s Salazar-Ajo Branch, 15 W. Plaza St. #179, Ajo, Arizona. Southwestern Native Americans developed sophisticated skills in astronomy and predicting the seasons centuries before Old World peoples entered the region. This presentation discusses petroglyphs at Picture Rocks, architecture of the “Great House” at Casa Grande Ruins, and other archaeological evidence of ancient southwestern astronomy and calendrical reckoning, and interprets how these discoveries may have related to ancient Native American rituals. Co-sponsored by Arizona Humanities. Free. Lee Irwin, 520-387-6075 orLee.Irwin@pima.gov.

Lecture Opportunity – Tucson
The Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society (AAHS) is pleased to present Dr. David Abbott on Monday, February 15^th at 7:30 p.m. in the University Medical Center’s Duval Auditorium (1500 N Campbell Ave, Tucson 85724), who will discuss, It’s All About Scale: Polity and Alliance in Prehistoric Central Arizona. Meetings are free and open to the public. For more information please visit the AAHS website: http://bit.ly/1uhONZh, or contact John D. Hall at jhall@sricrm.com with questions about this or any other AAHS program.