Tragedy at Danger Cave

Tragedy at Danger Cave
A cave with evidence of some of the earliest humans in Utah was looted last week by thieves — who, state park officials say, tore security fixtures from the walls and stole all the artifacts inside. http://bit.ly/2YvTweV – Salt Lake Tribune

Feature: The Bears Ears Education Center
The terracotta mesas and umber buttes reveal that this is an exceptional place. Yet not one sign from the Bureau of Land Management or the U.S. Forest Service, the two federal agencies that jointly manage Bears Ears National Monument, indicates where it’s actually located. There are no federal facilities dedicated to the rising tide of visitors. “It’s managed by Google,” says Josh Ewing, executive director of the land-conservation nonprofit Friends of Cedar Mesa, based in nearby Bluff, Utah… In the absence of federal resources, Ewing and Friends of Cedar Mesa raised $700,000 from the crowdfunding site Kickstarter and built the Bears Ears Education Center last year. http://bit.ly/2YxrnUR – High Country News

Continuing Coverage: Tribal Reactions to Appointees on Bears Ears Monument Advisory Committee
“The truth will prevail — and we are the truth,” said Alastair Lee Bitsóí, communications director for the Utah Diné Bikéyah, the nonprofit group that represents five Indigenous tribes who have partnered to protect an area of public lands known as Bears Ears National Monument. Bitsóí was discussing the member appointments to the Bears Ears National Monument Advisory Committee (BENM MAC), which were confirmed on April 11. The committee’s first meeting is scheduled for June 5 and 6 in Monticello. http://bit.ly/30h2o9T – Moab Sun News

Chimney Rock National Monument Opens for the Season Today
Come experience a unique part of America’s heritage this summer in the shadows of Chimney Rock National Monument’s awe-inspiring twin spires. Chimney Rock will open for the 2019 season on Wednesday, May 15. The site is accessible for guided tours and audio-guided tours. The price for guided tours is $16/adult and $8/child (ages 5-12). The price for audio-guided tours is $12/adult and $6/child (ages 5-12). There is no charge for children under 5. Chimney Rock National Monument is a protected archaeological site with limited access through tours only. http://bit.ly/2YuGU7H – Pagosa Springs Sun

Commentary/Travelogue: Indigenous Homelands and Route 66
The wind is so powerful on top of the mesa that even hours after I’ve returned to the valley below, I’ll be wiping its ancient sand from the cracks and crevices of my skin. In the Keres language, this is Haak’u, New Mexico’s Pueblo of Acoma, a sky city perched on a 300-foot bluff, some 7,000 feet above sea level—the oldest community in the United States. http://bit.ly/2YuiGui – Shoshi Parks in Yes! Magazine

New Book Examines the Meaning of Mirroring in Painted Pottery
A thousand years ago, the Ancestral Pueblo artist dipped a brush cut from a yucca leaf into pigment. His palette of basic marks included stepped forms, zigzags, prongs, curvilinear and rectilinear spirals, and the fine parallel lines known as hachures. In the startling new book, Painted Reflections: Isomeric Design in Ancestral Pueblo Pottery (Museum of New Mexico Press), artist and art historian Traugott and archaeologist Scott G. Ortman show that these painted patterns on bowls, jars, pitchers, and other pieces from the period are more than decoration or simple symbolism. http://bit.ly/30mKwuc – Santa Fe New Mexican

Video: The White Mountain Apache Experiment in Community-Based Site Protection
In this Tea and Archaeology presentation from April 7, 2019, Dr. John Welch (Archaeology Southwest and Simon Fraser University) describes one possible model for establishing and reinforcing better protections for cultural heritage sites. https://youtu.be/lmTIrcN5PYo – Archaeology Southwest’s YouTube

Exhibition: An Ageless Craft: Historic and Modern Pueblo Pottery, El Paso TX
June 8, 2019 – January 11, 2020 at the El Paso Museum of Archaeology. For hundreds of years the peoples of the Rio Grande Valley made breathtaking pottery that was used for domestic as well as ceremonial purposes. Through the passage of time, generations of masters have continued to practice their arts, continuing to create stunning pieces that have merged centuries of traditions with modern artistic sensibilities. Although they are geographically close together and share many cultural similarities, each pueblo has developed its own style that is unique to them. An Ageless Craft will display the work of potters from most of the Rio Grande and Western Pueblos including Maria Martinez, of San Ildefonso, the Nampeyo family of First Mesa (Hopi), and Albert Alvidrez of Ysleta del Sur. This is a not to miss opportunity to experience the continuation of age-old pueblo traditions through over two hundred beautiful works of art from the Museum’s permanent collection, El Paso Archaeological Society’s collection, and items on loan from the private collection of Albert Alvidrez. This is the largest exhibition undertaken by the Museum to date. http://archaeology.elpasotexas.gov/

Grant Opportunity: The F. Lewis Orrell Jr. Bequest Curriculum Development Award
This award offers grants on average of $500 per teacher, for a maximum of $5,000 awarded annually for curriculum enhancement related to the archaeology, history, or anthropology of the American Southwest. Proposals accepted from any public or public– charter elementary, middle, or high school located in Southern Arizona. Awards will be granted on a competitive basis. These grants are available thanks to a generous bequest to AAHS from F. Lewis Orrell Jr. June 30, 2019 is the application deadline. http://bit.ly/2YtyX2K – Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society

Job Opportunity, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington DC
The National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, seeks an Associate Curator of North American Archaeology for a limited term position. This position is responsible for a variety of content development, collections, collections information, and public service projects focusing on peoples, cultures, and histories of Native/indigenous North America (the United States, Canada, Greenland, and northern Mexico) through expanded attention to extant archaeological collections. Duties include research and scholarship; exhibitions and other interpretive content and programs; outreach to tribal communities, cultural centers and museums; access to online collections; and other programmatic efforts. The Associate Curator serves as a liaison with other scholars and institutions, including American Indian tribal museums, cultural centers, and community-based scholars, seeking opportunities for partnerships and/or collaborations, especially with regard to expanding access to and use and understanding of North American archaeological collections and developing sustained efforts to connect today’s Native American people and communities to earlier North American collections. https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/533364000

Job Opportunity, Desert Archaeology, Inc., Tucson AZ
New Listing (14 May 2019): Excavation Field Crew (Tucson): Experienced excavation crew members are sought for an ongoing project at Los Pozos, near I-10 in north Tucson. Experience with Early Agricultural period contexts is a plus but not required. Starts immediately and continues until September. Send a resume along with a cover letter indicating your experience to tucson@desert.com. http://bit.ly/2YsJDyv

Event Opportunity, Tucson AZ
Join the Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace for the San Ysidro Festival on Saturday, May 18, 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Mission Garden, 946 W. Mission Lane. Join us to bring back to life the traditional and historic San Ysidro wheat harvest festival in Tucson. Watch the procession, enjoy the music, and help us harvest, thresh, winnow, and mill white Sonora wheat, one of the first varieties of wheat brought to the New World. Sample the feast dish for this traditional event, pozole de trigo. Bring your friends to this family-friendly event. https://www.facebook.com/events/812905862415070/

Lecture Opportunity, Tucson AZ
On May 21 at 7:30 p.m., the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society will welcome Richard and Shirley Flint for “Mendoza’s Aim: To Complete the Columbian Project.” Don Antonio de Mendoza and his forebears had been backing the Columbian Project for generations. It is little wonder, then—even if it is a surprise to the twenty-first century—that Mendoza’s goal for the Coronado expedition was to finally reach Asia by traveling westward from Spain. This talk discusses why most Europeans of the day were sure that was possible and why it looked to be on the brink of accomplishment in the 1530s from Mexico. DuVal Auditorium, Banner-University Medical Center, 1501 N Campbell Ave. http://bit.ly/2YxpmYN

Lecture Opportunities, Santa Fe NM
Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. Barbara J. Mills, Regent’s Professor, Department of Anthropology and Professor, American Indian Studies, University of Arizona; Curator of Archaeology, Arizona State Museum; Co-Editor (w/S.Fowles), The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology; Author, ‘Key Debates in Chacoan Archaeology’, in In Search of Chaco: New Approaches to an Archaeological Enigma (D.G. Noble, Ed.); who will give a public lecture on May 27 at 6:00 p.m. at Santa Fe Women’s Club, 1616 Old Pecos Trail, as part of the Ancient Sites Ancient Stories II Lecture Series held annually to honor and acknowledge The Archaeological Conservancy. Admission is by subscription or $15 at the door. No reservations are necessary. Refreshments are served. Seating is limited. Contact Connie Eichstaedt at tel: 505 366-2775; email: southwestseminar@aol.com; web: southwestseminars.org

Southwest Seminars Presents Dr. Enrique LaMadrid, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Spanish, Department of Classical Languages, University of New Mexico and 2019 Recipient, Enrique Anderson Imbert Award, National American Academy of the Spanish Language; Author, Hermanitos Comanchitos: Indo-Hispano Rituals of Captivity and Redemption; Nuevo Mexico Profundo: Rituals of an Indo-Hispano Homeland (photographs by Miguel Gandert); Editor, Querencias ; who will give a public lecture on June 3 at 6:00 p.m. at Hotel Santa Fe as part of the Voices From the Past Lecture Series held annually. Admission is by subscription or $15 at the door. No reservations are necessary. Refreshments are served. Seating is limited. Contact Connie Eichstaedt at tel: 505 366-2775; email: southwestseminar@aol.com; web: southwestseminars.org

We’re happy to help get the word out, but we’re not mind readers! Please submit news, book announcements, and events at this link for consideration: https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/submit-to-sat/

Questions? sat-editor@archaeologysouthwest.org