Salt Lake Tribune Takes a Stand for the Antiquities Act

Salt Lake Tribune Takes a Stand for the Antiquities Act and Our National Monuments
Rob Bishop has made it clear that he would like for the Antiquities Act of 1906 to just go away. And for all those who support the law to “die.” Until one or both of those happen, though, neither the incoming president nor anyone else should listen to the congressman from northern Utah as he attempts to undo any number of national monuments that have been — or, in the next few weeks, may be — created by presidential order. The Antiquities Act is first cousin to what’s rightly been called “America’s best idea,” its system of national parks. Both are designed to fulfill the vision shared by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt and others to preserve culturally significant, ecologically fragile or just plain gorgeous landscapes for generations to come. http://bit.ly/2gANIO3 – Salt Lake Tribune

Secretary Jewell Visits Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument to Highlight the Success of Our National Monuments System
Chilly 30-degree temperatures were not enough to dissuade U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell from an early morning trek in the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. Jewell, who has served in her position since 2013, was in Las Cruces as part of a nationwide tour to highlight the department’s progress in managing and conserving America’s public lands, water and wildlife, as well as to revisit national monuments designated under President Obama. http://bit.ly/2gAUnrB – Las Cruces Sun News

Conservation Lands Foundation Voices Concern over Choice for Secretary of the Interior
“Rep. McMorris Rodgers’ voting record in Congress is starkly anti-conservation, including support for selling off public lands and weakening our nation’s bedrock conservation laws such as the Antiquities Act.  This record is of immense concern to Americans who treasure our parks, wildlife, and National Conservation Lands.  It is incumbent on the U.S. Senate to fully evaluate Rep. McMorris Rodgers’ positions and ensure she will responsibly steward the lands that belong to all Americans.” http://bit.ly/2gAKOsw – Conservation Lands Foundation

Help Protect the Southwest’s Wonders
In addition to outreach services like this weekly e-news digest, our website, and our quarterly magazine, Archaeology Southwest works hard every day to protect the Southwest’s cultural resources on a landscape scale. Our current efforts include protecting the Greater Chaco Landscape (New Mexico), and working to establish a Great Bend of the Gila National Monument (Arizona). Protecting archaeology on a landscape scale is not easy, but when we come together with open minds and respect, we can make a difference. Please make your year-end gift to Archaeology Southwest now to show that you value a future enriched by the past. http://bit.ly/2gAXboC – Archaeology Southwest

The Great Debate over the Fate of Our Public Lands Approaches
Let’s open our examination of what to expect with the comments of U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, a Republican congressman from Utah whose views matter to New Mexicans because he is the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. He wants President-elect Donald Trump to abolish national monuments established by President Barack Obama. Created under the 110-year-old Antiquities Act, monuments serve as a way for the president to set aside public lands to be protected for the future. http://bit.ly/2gB29Sf – Santa Fe New Mexican

Native Perspectives on Chaco Canyon
As young American Indians, our experiences at Chaco Canyon energize a lifeline to our past and future, a lifeline in danger from the extractive industry. Indian nations’ interests in Chaco Canyon and all of the San Juan Basin, including the Mancos Shale and Gallup Sandstone formations, predate the existence of the United States itself.  Once home to early Pueblo peoples, the Chaco area co-served as an extraordinary trade center with evidence supporting idea exchange and commerce all the way to South America. http://bit.ly/2gAP0Zx – Santa Fe New Mexican

Friends of Cedar Mesa Decry Congressional Failure to Act
Congress has concluded its work for the 2016 session without so much as a vote in the House of Representatives on the Utah Public Lands Initiative. We believe this represents a clear sign the bill lacked the bi-partisan support necessary to become law due to the many ‘poison pills’ it contained that would have decreased protections on the ground for internationally significant lands. Congress has failed for 113 years to protect the Bears Ears region, an area of enormous cultural, scientific and scenic value – a landscape containing more archaeological sites than Utah’s ‘Mighty Five’ National Parks combined. This failure to act comes despite almost unanimous local support for protecting archaeologically rich areas such as Cedar Mesa. Virtually every Utah elected official expressed support for the PLI’s provisions for designating large acreages of land in San Juan County as National Conservation Areas and Wilderness. http://bit.ly/2gAVt6N – FCM

BLM Cancels Two Oil Lease-Sales near Nine Mile Canyon
The Bureau of Land Management withdrew two controversial parcels in Nine Mile Canyon that had been proposed to be part of an oil and gas lease-sale on Tuesday. Multiple groups, including the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition, the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance had objected to the parcels potentially being subject to oil or gas development because of the abundance of cultural resources in the area.“We are relieved that BLM has deferred these parcels,” said Dennis Willis, head of the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition. “We look forward to working with BLM to complete its long overdue commitments to protect the undeniably significant and culturally rich landscape in Nine Mile Canyon.” http://bit.ly/2gAPU89 – Deseret News

Utah Diné Bikéyah Awarded Innovative New ArtPlace Grant
Today, ArtPlace America announced that Utah Diné Bikéyah’s ‘Traditional Arts of Bears Ears’ project is one of 29 programs chosen, from almost 1,400 applications, to receive funding through its National Creative Placemaking Fund in 2016. Working in close collaboration with all local residents and the 5 Tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, UDB aims to help facilitate a sustainable economic future for San Juan County through elevating arts and traditional knowledges tied to the Bears Ears cultural landscape. http://bit.ly/2gAP0st – UDB

A Sense of Hohokam Places 
Residents of Phoenix long ago recognized something special about the rugged mountains that rise from the desert south of the city. In 1924, this area became one of the largest municipal parks in the country. But the city’s denizens weren’t the first to appreciate the striking beauty of the South Mountains craggy landscape. The Hohokam, the prehistoric people who populated the Phoenix Basin from approximately A.D. 400–1450, embraced the same mountains as a sacred landscape, and adorned them with thousands of rock art images that endure today. Although archaeological investigations of the Hohokam have focused on their population centers and the vast network of irrigation canals they built along the Salt and Gila rivers, Hohokam rock art is not new to archaeologists. In recent years, however, a new perspective has emerged—one that reflects a growing effort to transform rock art analysis from a neglected stepchild of archaeology into a more useful tool for the study of the Hohokam as well as other ancient cultures. http://bit.ly/2gAXWhq – The Archaeological Conservancy

Mesa Verde National Park Hits a 17-Year High for Visitation
The park had about 593,000 visitors through November and could see 600,000 this year, said Cristy Brown, a park spokeswoman. Promotion around the National Park Service’s centennial anniversary, low gas prices, bicycle tours and cool weather likely helped bring people to the park, Brown said. The park also benefited from Every Kid in a Park Program, which offers free park passes to fourth-graders and their families through the 2016-17 school year. http://bit.ly/2gATcZm – Cortez Journal

Did the Residents of “Montezuma Castle” Suffer a Violent End?
It’s one of Arizona’s most famous landmarks: a pair of 900-year-old limestone cliff dwellings whose sudden abandonment centuries ago has proven to be one of the Southwest’s most enduring mysteries. New evidence suggests that the site — now part of Montezuma Castle National Monument — was not simply evacuated by its inhabitants, as archaeologists have believed for more than 80 years. Instead, recent research shows that its final days were likely fraught with violent conflict and death — an account corroborated by Native American oral histories of the site’s collapse some 600 years ago. http://bit.ly/2gAFztc – Western Digs

Lecture Opportunity – Santa Fe
Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. Kirt Kempter, vulcanologist, geoscientist, and field geologist, who will give a lecture Geology of Georgia O’Keefe’s White Place and Black Place on Dec. 19 at 6pm at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the annual Mother Earth Father Sky Lecture series held to honor 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; website: southwestseminars.org