Archaeologist Blows Whistle on AZ State Parks

Continuing Coverage: Archaeologist Blows Whistle on AZ State Parks
Arizona State Parks & Trails has dug up and bulldozed Native American and other archaeological sites without preserving artifacts in a rush to build visitor attractions and make money, a state archaeologist claims. In one case, Parks unearthed ancient stone tools and caused “irreversible” damage to a site dating back 12,000 years, according to agency memos. The archaeologist, Will Russell, told The Arizona Republic he repeatedly cautioned Parks officials that the work could violate the law and destroy artifacts, but he was overruled and even threatened by top agency managers, including Parks Director Sue Black. http://bit.ly/2CQHAga – Arizona Republic

Job Opportunity, Tucson AZ
Archaeology Southwest seeks a creative individual with the skillsets and commitment to help develop, and ultimately manage and utilize cyberSW. cyberSW is a large research database and analytical toolkit. It includes various classes of archaeological information from the U.S. Southwest/Mexican Northwest as well as applications to analyze those data. Applicants must either have: 1) an advanced degree in Archaeology/Anthropology and strong computer skills/experience (see below), or 2) a Computer Science-related degree and job experience with strong humanities or social science interests. Applicants should also have the knowledge and personal skills to be able to participate in collaborative efforts in regional archaeological synthesis in the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest and demonstrate at least a 5-year commitment to this position. Finally, key elements of the cyberSW database will be available to the general public, so this position requires a willingness to communicate with both public and professional users. http://bit.ly/2RfMYgL – Archaeology Southwest

Commentary: U.S. Museums and Human Remains
The vast majority, perhaps as much as 90 percent, of the human remains curated by natural history museums in North America are Native American. In breathtakingly stark contrast, Native Americans constitute less than 2 percent of the U.S. population. It’s hard to see how this disparity represents anything but blatant discrimination. http://bit.ly/2CR1APL – Sapiens

Texas’s Buttermilk Creek Complex in the News
But research in recent decades has revealed archaeological sites much older than Clovis, and genetic analyses of modern Native Americans suggest their ancestors crossed a land bridge from Asia to Alaska about 20,000 years ago, then migrated down the Pacific coast between 20,000 and 15,000 years before present. So who exactly were these early Americans? The new points uncovered at Buttermilk Creek may offer a clue, said Waters, who directs the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University. Because tools are so essential to the tasks of survival — hunting, cooking, building, killing — they can say a great deal about the people who wielded them. https://wapo.st/2CRJtsX – Washington Post

Maize in North America
Movie archaeologists are often pictured triumphantly extracting precious objects from the earth, instantly solving long-standing mysteries. Think of Indiana Jones’ Cross of Coronado, Staff of Ra and Ark of the Covenant. Real archaeologists mostly find small, almost valueless objects—and won’t know for years, or decades, what mystery they are resolving. Consider this ancient ear of maize, which Walter Hough pulled out of a New Mexico cave more than a century ago. http://bit.ly/2CRCxvW – Smithsonian Magazine

National Geographic Embraces VR
In early October, 400 gathered in National Geographic’s newly opened virtual reality theater in Washington, D.C., sporting VR headsets as photographer Aaron Huey guided them along the cliffs of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. It was one of many ways the 130-year-old Nat Geo is trying to reach people under 24, along with putting its content on platforms like Wattpad, IGTV and Snapchat. http://bit.ly/2CTnqCt – Digiday

Hopi Running Traditions
The Hopi traditionally ran up and down the mesas of northeastern Arizona, leaving their villages in the early morning to run long distances to tend to their fields, working all day and running home at night. They also ran for religious or spiritual reasons. “Certain clans in Hopi society were given the responsibility of running far beyond Hopi lands to entice the rain clouds to follow them back to the mesas and provide moisture to their fields,” Gilbert said. He runs 4 to 5 miles every other day. http://bit.ly/2COUwDc – The News Gazette (University of Illinois)

George Cowgill Estate Donates $1M to Continued Study and Preservation of Teotihuacan
“George’s willingness to seek answers to the future from lessons of our past has since proved prescient,” explained Michael E. Smith, the current director of the Teotihuacan Research Laboratory and a student of Cowgill’s at Brandeis University in the 1970s. “In a world where our ability to simply ‘spread out’ as a solution for population growth is rapidly diminishing, these lessons from the past may be key in creating safer, fairer and more effective cityscapes of tomorrow.” As Cowgill himself explained in a 2013 interview, “We shouldn’t think of past cultures as disappeared. They have a continued life in another form. They remain relevant.” http://bit.ly/2CRlSbO – Arizona State University

Book Event, Boulder CO
Capturing the passion and history embedded in local conversations about public lands, CU’s Center of the American West presents a book release event Thursday, November 8, at 6:30 p.m., with Voices from Bears Ears: Seeking Common Ground on Sacred Land, author Rebecca Robinson and photographer Stephen Strom. Eaton Humanities, Room 150. http://bit.ly/2CPyArK – CU Boulder Today

Publication Announcements
End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World’s Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals, by Ross D. E. MacPhee, illustrated by Peter Schouten. W. W. Norton & Company. http://bit.ly/2P3ncjv

A Study of Southwestern Archaeology, by Stephen H. Lekson. University of Utah Press. http://bit.ly/2LHJcOU

Save the Date: Graham County (AZ) Historical Society Fall Symposium
On Saturday, November 10, at the Barn at Discovery Park in Safford, Arizona, we will welcome Jeffery Clark of Archaeology Southwest. We will gather at 10:30 a.m. and Jeff will speak at 11:00 a.m. Open to the public. More information to follow.

Save the Date: New Discoveries in the American Paleolithic: The Pre-16,000BP Archaeological Record
The Anza Borrego Foundation, California State Parks, and sponsors announce New Discoveries in the American Paleolithic: The Pre-16,000BP Archaeological Record, a conference on Thursday, January 10, 2019, at 5:00 p.m. through Saturday, January 12, 2019, 5:00 p.m. This conference will be held at the UCI Research Center and the Borrego Springs Performing Arts Center in Borrego Springs, CA 92004. Admission is $35. http://www.theabf.org/new-discoveries-american-paleolithic

Tohono O’odham Art Festival, Tucson AZ
Fifteen Tohono O’odham artists will show their wares at Mission Garden. Artists include basketmakers, potters, jewelry makers, painters, and carvers. Rhonda Wilson will have baskets made with devil’s claw from Mission Garden! Live guitar music. November 3, 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. http://www.tucsonsbirthplace.org/

REMINDER: Archaeology Café (Phoenix): Life before AD 1500 on the Upper Gila River, Southwest New Mexico
On Tuesday, November 6, at 6:00 p.m., Archaeology Café returns to Changing Hands (300 W Camelback) for a new season of programs exploring the deep and diverse history of Phoenix and the greater Southwest in a jargon-free zone. Dr. Karen Schollmeyer will encourage Valley residents to look east up the Gila River. Residents of the upper reaches of the Gila River in southwest New Mexico found successful ways of farming, hunting, and living together for over a millennium.  This talk explores some of these past ways of living, including periods in which people gathered into large villages or dispersed into less archaeologically visible communities.  The unique archaeological record of this area allows us to examine the challenges and benefits of these different ways of living, and how farmers adapted to local conditions from the time of the earliest villages into the late 1400s. http://bit.ly/2EaF5aW – Archaeology Southwest

Lecture Opportunity, Santa Fe NM
The Santa Fe Archaeological Society (SFAS), Archaeological Institute of America, is pleased to present Klinton Burgio-Ericson, University of New Mexico, on Tuesday, November 13, at 7:15 p.m. at the Pecos Trail Cafe, 2239 Old Pecos Trail. His subject will be Situating the Hendricks-Hodge Archaeological Expedition to the Hawikku Pueblo of Zuni, 1915-1923.

Lecture Opportunity, Taos NM
Taos Archaeological Society’s monthly meeting/lecture will feature Sean Dolan, PhD, Archaeologist with Los Alamos National Laboratory who will speak on From Paleoindian to the Pueblo Revolt: The Role of Obsidian in New Mexico. This will take place on Tuesday, November 13, at 7:00 p.m. at Kit Carson Electric Boardroom, 118 Cruz Alta Rd. http://www.taosarch.org

Thanks to Terry Colvin and Brian Kreimendahl for their contributions to this edition.

Please submit news, book announcements, and events at this link for consideration: https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/submit-to-sat/

Questions? sat-editor@archaeologysouthwest.org