Continuing Coverage: Administration to Announce “Revisions” to Bedrock Environmental Law

Dear Friends, 

This past week, a four-story adobe building built in the early 1300s and known today as the Casa Grande has consumed many hours of my time. On Monday of last week, the manuscript for the reissue of our 2009 Archaeology Southwest Magazine on the Casa Grande Community was turned over to our publication designer, Kathleen Bader. 

Kathleen, Kate Sarther our content editor, and I tracked down maps, photos, photo credits and permissions, typos, and performed the numerous tasks of getting a review draft of a magazine together. Our 2009 issue was 20 pages. Our new one has 40. When Kathleen finished laying out the magazine just before 6:00 p.m. last Friday, she headed out on a well-deserved week off. It gives our authors time to review their drafts, and next week, after final edits, we’re off to the printer. 

This week also brought the Casa Grande to the forefront. Testimony on the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument expansion bill (H.R 4840) was heard on Monday by the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands. Barnaby Lewis, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Gila River Indian Community spoke in support of the bill (read his written testimony here [opens as a PDF]). 

Barnaby is an author on two of the articles in our upcoming magazine. In his testimony, he eloquently conveyed that “Archaeological sites define and establish the connections O’Odham have with their Huhugam ancestors.” And he acknowledged the significance of this place to the American public. 

In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison established Casa Grande as the nation’s first archaeological preserve. On this bill, there has been remarkable bipartisanship by Arizona’s senators and representatives. If Congress follows their exemplary lead, this important national monument will expand to include the earliest part of the community, known as the Grewe site, as well as the upstream village of Adamsville. 

It is a joy when past places can bring people together. Savor this rare bipartisanship before you read on. 

My best wishes for your week ahead,

 Bill Doelle
President & CEO, Archaeology Southwest 

Continuing Coverage: Administration to Announce “Revisions” to Bedrock Environmental Law
The president’s plan to streamline the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a bedrock environmental law signed with much fanfare by President Richard M. Nixon in 1970, would make it easier to build highways, pipelines, chemical plants and other projects that pose environmental risks. If the final version mirrors a proposal from January, it would force agencies to complete even the most exhaustive environmental reviews within two years and restrict the extent to which they could consider a project’s full impact on the climate. https://wapo.st/2C1J0Xp – Washington Post

In March 2020, Archaeology Southwest submitted formal comments opposing the changes, which would also impact heritage resources and cultural landscapes. Read those comments here: http://bit.ly/334zawN

Utah’s Moab and Grand County Press BLM to Cancel Lease Sales
The Moab and Grand County councils are urging the Bureau of Land Management to cancel its proposed sale of oil and gas leases on 85,000 acres near Canyonlands and Arches national parks, arguing that the agency has ignored their concerns about a sale they say would undermine their world-class recreational economy. https://bit.ly/3fvcvz4 – Salt Lake Tribune

Excavations Begin in Tulsa
Nearly a century after a brutal race massacre left as many as 300 black people dead, this city began to dig Monday for suspected mass graves from the violence. A team of scientists, archaeologists and forensic anthropologists watched as a backhoe moved dirt from an 8-by-10-foot hole at the city-owned Oaklawn Cemetery, where ground-penetrating radar last year detected anomalies consistent with mass graves. Several descendants of massacre survivors bore witness to the moment outside the graveyard’s wrought-iron fence, standing in a light rain after the work was briefly delayed by booming thunder and lightning. https://wapo.st/2CzUlxA – Washington Post

View from a Hopi Farm
At Hopi, we steward the land. Instead of taking, we’re giving back. When we go out to clear the fields or gather sand for a certain ceremony, we always leave something behind—paho, the prayer feather, or a pot, or flour from our corn. We were farmers before we had ceremonies. So our ceremonies, as elaborate as they are, were done to protect what we were originally here for—to farm. https://bit.ly/3gZVGww – Border Lore

Museums Ask Us to Document This Year
As museum curators and archivists stare down one of the most daunting challenges of their careers — telling the story of the pandemic; followed by severe economic collapse and a nationwide social justice movement — they are imploring individuals across the country to preserve personal materials for posterity, and for possible inclusion in museum archives. It’s an all-hands-on-deck effort, they say. https://nyti.ms/2ZtgS8j – New York Times

Past Pesticide Treatments Complicate Repatriation
Under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, known as NAGPRA, museums were required to inventory their collections and mark out which artifacts and ancestral remains belonged to which tribes. After the law took effect, the Hopi were contacted by 330 museums, some with collections that included more than 10,000 Hopi items. The problem was that poisonous objects were being sent back to tribal communities, and many would go back into rituals, coming in close proximity to a person’s skin, eyes, nose, and mouth. It seemed like a disaster waiting to happen—and one that demanded an immediate response. https://bit.ly/2B3FSd2 – Atlas Obscura

Aztec Ruins, Mesa Verde, and Chaco During the Pandemic
Not every staff member at Aztec Ruins or Chaco has been teleworking, Hatfield noted, explaining that preservation and maintenance work — as well as protection of the ruins themselves — continues to be done. Although the visitors centers, exhibit areas and bookstores at both properties closed in the middle of March when the shutdown began, the parks themselves remained open and continued receiving visitors on their trails. https://bit.ly/2Olz5ye – Farmington Daily Times

Essay: Why Potsherds Matter
Just one piece, maybe two. The stark black lines on white-slipped clay are like a prize. You feel like you really discovered something. You want it as a reminder. Don’t do it. https://bit.ly/2OjvQrf – Craig Childs at the Last Word on Nothing

Blog: Putting the People Back into Wilderness
Legally, and in the public mind, wilderness is packaged as a landscape encased in amber, unravished and unspoiled by humanity. Yet archaeological remains and Indigenous oral traditions attest to the antiquity of human impact in wilderness areas. People hunted, farmed, built communities, and lived their lives in places now valued for being “primeval” and “untrammeled by man.” This paradox is negotiated through contesting the legitimacy of Native Americans as stewards of their own lands and passively dehumanizing Native peoples by subsuming their human history into nature. https://bit.ly/3iM9RHk – Maxwell Forton at the Preservation Archaeology blog

Blog: What Chocolate-Drinking Jars Tell Indigenous Potters Now
In the early 1900s, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History joined an archaeological expedition that collected some of the cylinder vessels from Chaco Canyon. Two of them are now on display at the museum’s “Objects of Wonder” exhibit. The jars’ acquisition is a reminder of the museum’s colonial past, but nowadays the museum’s anthropologists have a new purpose for the jars and other pottery: to connect them with indigenous people who are spearheading cultural revitalization in their communities. https://bit.ly/2ZqjzaF – Abigail Eisenstadt at Smithsonian Voices

Online Resources, Events, and Opportunities to Help
Please keep sharing these with us, and we will keep helping to get the word out. Our inbox is sat-editor@archaeologysouthwest.org.

From Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society: On July 20, at 7:00 p.m. MST, Paul Minnis will present “Mimbres and Paquimé Relationships?” More info: https://www.az-arch-and-hist.org/2019/03/announcements/. Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/79954472865

From Mesa Verde Voices: In this episode, we hear from Louie Garcia, (Tiwa and Piro Pueblo) traditional Pueblo weaver, about the important role specialization has played in the cultures descending from Mesa Verde; and we hear from Laurie Webster, archaeologist specializing in textiles, about how particular materials and weave structures can indicate if items were traded or made locally. https://www.mesaverdevoices.org/textiles

From the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture: TODAY, July 15, at 6:00 p.m. MDT, traditional Pueblo fiber artist Louie Garcia (Tiwa/Piro Pueblo) presents “Of Warp and Weft: Fiber Arts in the Pueblo Southwest Past, Present, and Future.” Link to access: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86927318253. On July 22, at 6:00 p.m. MDT, Patrick Cruz (Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo) will present “A Look at Classic Period Tewa Communities in the Velarde Area.” Link to access: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88545265547. On July 29, at 6:00 p.m. MDT, Lewis Borck will present “Breaking Down Cardboard Boxes: How Archaeology Can Erase Histories.” Link to access: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84209568860

Video Channel Roundup: Have you missed an online presentation, or are you looking for more? Check out these YouTube channels to stay up to date.

Amerind Foundation, https://www.youtube.com/user/AmerindFoundation/videos
Archaeology Southwest, https://www.youtube.com/user/ArchaeologySouthwest/videos
Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, https://bit.ly/3ftznPr
Arizona State Museum, https://www.youtube.com/user/azstatemuseum/videos
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, https://www.youtube.com/user/CrowCanyonConnects/videos
Mesa Prieta Petroglyphs Project, https://bit.ly/3eq86MJ
Museum of Indian Arts and Cultures, https://www.youtube.com/user/IndianArtsCulture/videos
School for Advanced Research, https://www.youtube.com/user/sarsantafemultimedia/videos
Society for American Archaeology’s “Archiving the Archaeologists,” https://bit.ly/2OrxJC1

We’re happy to help get the word out. Please submit news, publication announcements, and other resources to this link for consideration: https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/submit-to-sat/

Questions? sat-editor@archaeologysouthwest.org