Temporary Halt to Fracking near Chaco Canyon Overturned

Temporary Halt to Fracking near Chaco Canyon Overturned
An effort to temporarily halt drilling across part of one of the nation’s largest natural gas fields has been rejected by a federal appeals court, leaving environmentalists to push their case against hydraulic fracturing in district court. A coalition of environmental groups sued the Bureau of Land Management in 2015, accusing the agency of failing to study the effects of fracking on local communities, the area’s cultural resources and the environment as it approved dozens of drilling permits in the San Juan Basin over a five-year period. http://bit.ly/2fueM27 – Santa Fe New Mexican

Act Now to Preserve Bears Ears
The Bears Ears area is the most significant unprotected cultural landscape in the United States. A monument designation would offer protection to traditional Native American land use and more than 100,000 cultural sites located on the 1.9 million acres of public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service. Make your voice heard, sign the Petition at http://bit.ly/2fuh81d – Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition

Burials Located in Northern Chihuahua May Provide New Information on the Early Agricultural Period
Archaeologists called to investigate a cave on a rancher’s property have discovered an unusual burial that’s providing new insights into the ways of some of the earliest farmers of the Chihuahuan Desert. In the cave, researchers have found the skeleton of an infant, the lower half of a man whose legs were tied together, and the remains of a scarlet macaw, all buried among a scattering of stone points, textiles, and other artifacts. http://bit.ly/2fu77kx – Western Digs

Additional Insight on Early Agricultural Period Burials Suggests “Ancient Feuds”
There is significant variation in how different cultures over time have dealt with the dead. Yet, at a very basic level, funerals in the Sonoran Desert thousands of years ago were similar to what they are today. Bodies of the deceased were buried respectfully, while families and mourners followed certain customs to honor lives lost. At least, most of the time. http://bit.ly/2fujihp – Science Daily

Renae Yellowhorse on the “Escalade” Project
Just north of Tuba City and an hour’s drive off Highway 89 through a web of dirt roads, lies a remote perch on the east rim of the Grand Canyon. A few thousand feet below the rim, the Little Colorado River converges with the main stem of the Colorado River. It is at this spot that a developer who recently submitted a proposal to the Navajo Nation Council wants to build a tourist resort complete with hotels and shopping and—most notably—a tram capable of shuttling 10,000 people a day from the rim to the river. http://bit.ly/2fu6BCX – High Country News

Zuni Students Practice Preservation at Chimney Rock
Visitors to Chimney Rock National Monument next year will have a safer hike to the mesa top following work completed this month by a Native American crew from Zuni Pueblo, a New Mexico tribe with cultural ties to the ancestral Puebloans.  Chimney Rock, which became a national monument in 2012, covers 7 square miles of the San Juan National Forest and features hundreds of prehistoric pit houses and ceremonial buildings built by the ancestral Puebloans. The trail to the Chacoan-style Great House Pueblo on the mesa at 7,000 feet may only be a half-mile long, but it’s steep and rocky. http://bit.ly/2fueecy – Cortez Journal

SAA Releases Free Special Issue of Advances in Archaeological Research Focusing upon Landscape Management
The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) has made the May 2016 issue of Advances in Archaeological Practice freely accessible. A themed issued devoted to landscape-scale management, it contains three key reports on landscape-scale cultural heritage management of interest to non-archaeologists .The three multi-authored reports combine centuries of personal experience by distinguished practitioners in archaeological survey, documentation, and valuation. http://bit.ly/2fuieKh – Society for American Archaeology

Alleged “High on Life” Vandal May Face Jail Time for Flying Drone at Mesa Verde National Park
The lawyer representing the four men accused of walking on Grand Prismatic Spring in May acknowledged at least one of his clients may face jail time. The client in question is Charles Ryker Gamble, who (in addition to his Yellowstone charges) faces a misdemeanor charge for flying a drone in Mesa Verde National Park. We previously reported that Gamble would appear in court separate from the other defendants for the Mesa Verde charge. http://bit.ly/2fuguRh – Yellowstone Insider

Mesa Verde Cancels Annual Luminaria Event Due to Rockfall Danger
Worries that the rock ceiling in Spruce Tree House might peel off have prompted Mesa Verde National Park officials to cancel their annual open house and luminaria event scheduled for December 8. With the ongoing concern over the stability of the rock arch in the Spruce Tree House alcove, park officials have determined that entering the alcove to place lanterns in the site is an unnecessary risk to staff members. “I regret that we have to cancel the event,” Mesa Verde Superintendent Cliff Spencer said Friday in a release. “But I cannot justify allowing our staff into Spruce Tree House to place and light the lanterns with the risk of rockfall present. http://bit.ly/2fu697L – National Parks Traveler

Preserving the O’odham Language for the Next Generation
In O’odham the word for goat is siwat and ce:kol is squirrel. The word for brain is ‘uag. Wanna know the O’odham word for pencil? It’s la:bis. And hu’ul is the O’odham word for maternal grandmother, as in a new children’s picture book called “A Day With Hu’ul,” written and illustrated by José “Husi” Cázares and Kerrie Ann Cázares. http://bit.ly/2fuctMI – Arizona Daily Star

The Southwest Faces a Grim Future Climate
The risk of a severe, multi-decade drought hitting the Southwest United States by the end of the century could reach as high as 99 percent if greenhouse gas emissions continue along current lines, says a paper by a team of scientists from Cornell University, Columbia University and NASA. The climate-model-based study, which appeared in the Oct. 5 edition Science Advances, pins the risk at 70, 90 or 99 percent. The different estimates reflect scenarios with more, equal or less precipitation, respectively. http://bit.ly/2fu4Be0 – Arizona Public Media

Cottonwood AZ Celebrates Its Heritage on November 12
What was Cottonwood like back in the teens, 20s, and 30s? Find out Nov.12 during the third annual Cottonwood Historic Home and Building Tour from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The volunteer-run event, hosted by the City of Cottonwood and the Cottonwood Historic Preservation Commission, provides a self-guided tour of several historic homes and businesses. http://bit.ly/2fu5ao7 – Verde Independent

Change of Speaker – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. Keith Malcolm Prufer, who will present a lecture Earliest Humans in the Tropics of Central America: New Research on Ecology of Lowlands Hunters and Gatherers on Nov. 7 at 6pm at Hotel S.Fe. Dr. Prufer is Co-Editor, In the Maw of the Earth Monster: Studies of Mesoamerican Ritual Cave Use and Stone Houses and Earth Lords: Maya Religion in the Cave Context. This lecture is part of the Mother Earth Father Sky Lecture Series held to acknowledge The New Mexico Environmental Law Center. 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; southwestseminars.org

Lecture Opportunity – Taos
The Taos Archaeological Society is pleased to present Charlie Acuna, a “neolithic technician,” who will lecture on “Flintknapping: Art of the Ancients,” on Tuesday, November 8, 2016 at 7 pm at the Kit Carson Electric Board Room, 118 Cruz Alta Road, Taos. Contact Don Keefe @575-224-1023 or Phil Aldritt @575-770-3408 for questions or further information.

Lecture Opportunity – Tucson
Felipe Molina presents “The Tucson and Marana Yoeme (Yaqui Indian) Communities” for Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s 6-8:30 p.m. November 17 “Third Thursday Food for Thought” dinner at El Molinito Restaurant, 10180 N. Oracle Rd., Oro Valley, Arizona. Many Yoeme (Yaqui Indians) fled Mexican persecution after 1890 and established communities in Tucson, Marana, Phoenix and other Arizona cities. Yoeme historian Felipe Molina relates what his grandparents and other Yoeme elders from Tucson’s original Pascua Village told him about these Arizona Yoeme settlements. No entry fee. Guests may purchase their own dinners. Reservations required before 5 p.m.November 16: 520-798-1201 or info@oldpueblo.org.

Lecture Opportunity – Tucson
On November 8, 2016, at 5:30 p.m., the Tucson chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America welcomes Dr. Alexandra Carpino (Northern Arizona University), who will present The ‘Taste’ for Violence in Etruscan Art: Debunking the Myth. Etruscan artists used, in a wide variety of contexts, different types of violent imagery as a form of visual communication. In the scholarly literature, these representations are frequently described as not only peculiarly Etruscan (as opposed to Greek) in taste but also as indicative of a peculiar appetite for bloody or horrific imagery and a taste for gore and cruelty. The lecture will take place in room 216 of the Haury Building, 1009 E South Campus Drive, at the University of Arizona. http://aiatucson.arizona.edu/ – AIA Tucson

Lecture Opportunity – Winslow
T.J. McMichael is the speaker for the November 9th meeting of the Homolovi Chapter of AAS, on the ethnobotony of the ancient Colorado Plateau.  HAS meetings are the second Wednesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Winslow Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center (Historic Lorenzo Hubbell Trading Post), 523 W. Second St in Winslow.  You can also join us and the speaker(s) for dinner at 5 p.m. at the Historic La Posada Turquoise Room (on your own tab).

Reminder: Archaeology Café (Tucson)
On Tuesday, November 1, Dr. Michael Mathiowetz (Riverside City College) joins us for our November Archaeology Café. He will share The Southwest without Paquimé: Situating the Casas Grandes Culture in the U.S. Southwest and Postclassic Mesoamerica. We meet on the patio of Casa Vicente, 375 S. Stone Ave., Tucson. Presentations begin after 6:00 p.m. It is best to arrive before 5:30 p.m., as seating is open and unreserved, but limited. Archaeology Café is free, but guests are encouraged to order their own refreshments from the menu. http://bit.ly/2eIaUpP – Archaeology Southwest

Hands-On Archaeology Opportunity – Tucson
Visit with Archaeology Southwest’s ancient technology expert, Allen Denoyer, on Saturday, November 12, 2016, at Oro Valley’s Fall Festival at Steam Pump Ranch. In addition to guiding visitors in hands-on activities, Allen will demonstrate how ancient people made stone tools and discuss work on our experimental pithouses, which are located at the park. https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/event/fall-festival-at-steam-pump-ranch-2/

Archaeology Café (Phoenix): Re-thinking 17th-Century New Mexico
On November 15, 2016, at 5:30 pm., we welcome Dr. Scott Ortman (University of Colorado). Ortman explains, “Recent studies of 17th-century New Mexico have focused almost exclusively on the negative consequences of Spanish contact for Native people. Although Spanish colonization was disastrous, Pueblo people also willingly incorporated many elements of Spanish culture during this period. This simple fact suggests a more balanced perspective is needed.” We meet at Macayo’s Central 4001 N. Central Ave. https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/event/archaeology-cafe-phoenix-re-thinking-17th-century-new-mexico/

Hands-On Archaeology – New Classes
Ancient technologies expert Allen Denoyer has added some new workshops to the fall–winter schedule, including making stone and shell jewelry and making bone tools. For more information, visit: https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/what-we-do/hands-on-archaeology/hands-on-archaeology-classes/

Thanks to Adrianne Rankin for contributing to this week’s newsletter.