Dear Friends,
On May 1, 2024, the entire Archaeology Southwest staff gathered in Tucson to begin an Appreciative Inquiry process that will flow into a strategic planning exercise this fall. What is Appreciative Inquiry, you ask?
According to experts Diana Whitney and Amanda Trosten-Bloom, “Appreciative Inquiry is the study of what gives life to human systems when they are at their best.” They go on to say that “This approach to…organization change is based on the assumption that questions and dialogue about strengths, successes, values, hopes, and dreams are themselves transformational.”
As such, our strategic planning efforts over the coming months will be based on affirmation and appreciation, not negation and criticism for its own sake. Put another way, we will focus and double-down on Archaeology Southwest’s strengths. Although we won’t ignore our weaknesses, we will approach those separately as challenges, rather than obstacles or barriers to our future success.
The Appreciative Inquiry process involves the entire staff and involves detailed, extensive interviews with people who know the organization. Over the summer, every staff member will conduct at least three of these in-depth interviews. (If we contact you, please be kind and help us out!)
In September, we will reconvene to digest and analyze the results, which in some ways will constitute a mini-ethnography of Archaeology Southwest. We will better understand ourselves and will have a much better understanding of where we fit within the community writ large. Again, the idea is not to reconstitute our beloved organization. Rather, it is to better understand our strengths and to build on them to ensure future success.
As with any such day-long workshop—much less one that requires deep introspection and reflection—we were all tired at the end. But it was great for me to hear our staff talk about (and debate!) what makes Archaeology Southwest special and why. We are all richer as a result.
Until next week,
Steve Nash
President & CEO, Archaeology Southwest
Banner Image: San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, Bob Wick
Two National Monuments Expanded
President Biden on Thursday expanded the boundaries of two national monuments in California by nearly 120,000 acres, using his executive authority to protect vast swaths of land of cultural significance to Native American tribes and nearby communities. … Rudy J. Ortega Jr., tribal president of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, said he had worried that industrial development would encroach on lands near the San Gabriel Mountains that his people have cared for since time immemorial. The expansion, he said in a statement, “would also further protect areas that are critical for our environment and the wildlife and plants that depend on this landscape.” The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation and other tribes helped lead the campaign to expand the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument. They called for adding 13,753 acres and changing the name of an additional 11-mile ridgeline from “Walker Ridge” to “Molok Luyuk,” which means “Condor Ridge” in the Patwin language. Maxine Joselow in the Washington Post | Read more »
Is Proposed Chuckwalla National Monument Next?
Thomas Tortez Jr. leads a group across a gravelly wash in Painted Canyon, at the spot where his Cahuilla tribal ancestors once lived in a village. The solar eclipse is underway. … Tortez, tribal council chairman of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, spikes the sand with the desiccated yucca stalk that he’s repurposed as a walking stick. He seems at ease with the mystery of the sound and the mystique of this section of the Mecca Hills Wilderness. His people have cherished and watched over this canyon in the eastern Coachella Valley for thousands of years. Now they are among the Indigenous Californians, conservationists and other nature lovers who want President Biden to designate 627,855 acres of desert where the canyon sits as the Chuckwalla National Monument. Tyrone Beason for the Los Angeles Times | Read more »
Tribal Co-Management and the Bears Ears Model
“Our tribal lands and resources extend far beyond our current reservation boundaries,” Christopher Tabbee, vice chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee and co-chair of the Bears Ears Commission, said in a statement in March. The collaborative plan, he added, “is a model for federal agencies to incorporate tribal knowledge and expertise into land-management plans and practices,” something that is “needed now more than ever.” Its success has made it a model: Multiple national monument campaigns have reached out to the Bears Ears Commission for insight and support, said Craig Andrews, Hopi Tribe vice chairman and co-chair of the Bears Ears Commission. Over the past few years, the Biden administration has supported tribal expertise in land management through policy initiatives, funding and agreements with tribal nations. At the annual White House Tribal Nations Summit in December, the Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture announced that they had formed more than 190 new co-management and co-stewardship agreements with tribes in 2023. Anna V. Smith for High Country News | Read more »
Continuing Coverage: Opposition Coalition Seeks Appeal of Ruling on SunZia Transmission Line
Native American tribes and environmentalists want a U.S. appeals court to weigh in on their request to halt construction along part of a $10 billion transmission line that will carry wind-generated electricity from New Mexico to customers as far away as California. The disputed stretch of the SunZia Transmission line is in southern Arizona’s San Pedro Valley. The tribes and others argue that the U.S. Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management failed to recognize the cultural significance of the area before approving the route of the massive project in 2015. KGUN 9 via AP | Read more »
Calling All Section 106 Pros: Please Take Our Survey on Cultural Landscape Studies
Archaeology Southwest calls on all professionals involved in the Section 106 process (to comply with key provisions of the U.S. National Historic Preservation Act) to contribute knowledge and perspective on the best ways to identify, assess, and protect cultural landscapes. Please take the succinct, anonymous, 10-question survey by May 17, 2024. John Welch and colleagues for Archaeology Southwest | Take the survey »
America’s 11 Most Endangered Places for 2024
Now in its 37th year, the National Trust’s annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places continues to be a powerful, galvanizing tool for historic preservation, with over 350 sites listed and only a handful lost. This year’s list exemplifies the National Trust’s continued commitment to telling the full American story, with a diverse array of sites both inside and outside the continental United States. These places mirror the complexities, challenges, and opportunities that have always been part of what it means to be American—and each have stories that are deserving of attention and care. One theme connecting the 2024 list is the power of communities to come together to combat erasure and protect the cultural landmarks, treasured local businesses, restaurants, customs, and traditions that help tell the layered stories of those who’ve called a place home. National Trust for Historic Preservation | Read more »
New Film Shares Pueblo of Santa Ana’s Purchase and Restoration of Their Traditional Lands
In 2016, the Pueblo of Santa Ana paid $30 million for 60,000 acres, buying back their ancestral lands. The lands had been privatized and then grazed for more than a century. Now, they’re using traditional knowledge and Western science to protect Tamaya Kwii Kii Nee Puu for traditional uses. KUNM with Laura Paskus, producer of “Our Land,” about her documentary “Our Land: Ancestral Connections.” It aired on New Mexico PBS and is also available online. Megan Kamerick for KUNM (public radio) | Read more or listen now »
NAGPRA in the News
The seven ancestors and funerary objects were given to the University of Utah in the early 1930s and remained in its possession for decades. Until 2010—when the Natural History Museum of Utah announced it was working to transfer them to the Kanosh Band of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah. The museum’s repatriation efforts since then have been slow, with only six similar notices published in the Federal Register, reflecting a total of 67 ancestors made available to affiliated tribes. … In December, the Biden administration updated the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which was passed in 1990. It was designed to speed up the return of Native American human remains and funerary, sacred or culturally important objects to Indigenous groups. The new regulations “will now allow us to repatriate based on geography, rather than cultural affiliation,” which had been a “pretty high bar,” said [curator of ethnography Alex] Greenwald, who also is an assistant anthropology professor at the U. Palak Jayswal in the Salt Lake Tribune | Read more »
Blog: Diana Kamilli: Thinking Inside the Box
Diana Chapman Kamilli passed away in early August of last year, after a short illness. This belated Field Journal entry seeks to recognize the important contribution that she made to the methodology used in sand temper-based, binocular microscopic pottery provenance studies that have taken place in Arizona during the last 40 years. … Her innovation was quickly adopted by Desert petrographers for other Tucson Basin, Tonto Basin, and Lower Verde Valley petrofacies then under development, and in other portions of Arizona as petrofacies models were created throughout the state. A standardized format was adopted, mounting an insert with 20 numbered rectangles in each match box with representative rock and mineral grains glued in each “slot”, a summary petrofacies description written, as well as descriptions for the sand grains. James Heidke for Field Journal (Desert Archaeology, Inc.) | Read more »
Podcast: Why Protecting Cultural Sites Is Important
With Shannon Cowell and Dusty Whiting. In this revealing episode, we delve into the clandestine underworld of archaeological site looting and cultural vandalism in the Southwest. Our esteemed guests shine a light on the often-underreported plundering of ancestral lands and the complex web of issues surrounding heritage justice. Chris Clarke for 90 Miles from Needles | Listen now »
Postdoc Opening: Center for Digital Antiquity
The Center for Digital Antiquity (CDA) within the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University is seeking a postdoctoral researcher for an 18-month appointment beginning June 1, 2024. In collaboration with CDA researchers, the successful applicant will work on the Comparative Digital Archaeological Studies sponsored by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) which requires that the candidate must be able to obtain a secret security clearance with the Department of Defense. The postdoctoral researcher will work with DPAA to explore how the management and organization of archaeological data can enhance its search and recovery efforts for missing service personnel. The position will develop and execute a collaborative research project that will increase the applied and scholarly impact of the DPAAs datasets, by leveraging the unique capabilities of tDAR (the Digital Archaeological Record; www.tdar.org). The postdoctoral researcher will be expected to work with the DPAA to create project deliverables and publish the results of this research in appropriate venues. Arizona State University | Learn more »
May Subscription Lectures (Santa Fe NM)
May 6, Chip Colwell, How Humans Discovered Tools, Invented Meaning & Made More of Everything; May 13, Grant S. McCall, Southern Africa Rock Art & Hunter-Gatherer Social Systems: Changing Perspectives; May 20, Ripan S. Malhi, Anthropological Genomics: Changing the Practice and Practitioners; May 27, Henrietta Lidchi, Surviving Desires: Making & Selling Native Jewelry in the American Southwest. 6:00 p.m., Hotel Santa Fe; fees apply. Southwest Seminars | Learn more »
REMINDER: May 7 Online Event: Tasting History: A Hands-On Approach and Revival of Native and Traditional Agave Crops in the Tucson Area
With Jesús García (Kino Heritage Fruit Trees program, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum). Archaeology Café (Archaeology Southwest) | Register (free) »
REMINDER: May 8 Online Event: Early 20th Century Urban Apartments: Then and Now
With Amber Anderson and Roger Roper. The speakers are guides for Salt Lake City’s “urban apartment” boom, with around 200 buildings constructed between 1902 and 1930 still standing today. Join this webinar to learn about the architecture and social context shaping this innovative housing, compared to modern apartment trends. Dive into project case studies, uncovering the motivations driving recent rehabilitation efforts for these historic urban apartments. This insightful presentation will show how past solutions inform contemporary urban living. Utah SHPO | Learn more and register (free) »
May 8 In-Person Event (Tucson AZ): The Demise of the Megabeasts: Ice Age Extinctions and What Caused Them
With Advait M. Jukar. Some 50,000 years ago, large animals lived everywhere. Today, they’re mostly found in Africa and parts of Asia. The Tucson area was home to bison, camel, horses, giant ground sloths, and mammoths. But why did they disappear all of a sudden? Did early modern humans hunt large, land-dwelling megafauna to extinction as they migrated to new continents, or is climate change to blame instead? Jukar will discuss cutting edge research about the megafaunal extinction and how paleontologists approach the debate surround the causes. 5:30 p.m., 1675 W. Anklam Rd., in the Boathouse at the base of Tumamoc Hill just south of Anklam Rd. Call 520-621-6945 for info. Tumamoc Talk (Desert Laboratory) | RSVP to tumamoc-hill@arizona.edu »
May 9 Online Event: Explaining the Pueblo in Kansas: Ethnogenesis of Apachean and Puebloan Communities on the High Plains
With Matthew H. Hill. Nearly 120 years ago, researchers identified a most unusual find for western Kansas: a seven-room masonry pueblo. This discovery led to repeated archaeological excavations of this site (Scott County Pueblo) and other nearby related sites. The available information suggests these localities were occupied by migrants from the Rio Grande Pueblos who lived alongside Indigenous Apache (Ndé) groups for several generations from the early 1600s to late 1700s. Hill describes his and Dr. Margaret Beck’s systematic reanalysis of these sites and highlights their findings about occupation history, the residents’ identities, and regional social connections with other groups in and around the Great Plains. Crow Canyon Archaeological Center | Learn more and register (free) »
May 15 Online Event: Archaeology Behind the Lens
With Matt Stirn. What is it like photographing pyramids in Sudan for Smithsonian Magazine? How about covering an excavation from a Trojan War palace in Greece for The New York Times? In this lecture archaeologist and photojournalist Stirn will talk about his transition from researching prehistoric villages in the Rocky Mountains to covering archaeology stories around the world for magazines and newspapers. Utah SHPO | Learn more and register (free) »
May 15 Online Event: Recalibrating the Significance of Prehistoric Sites of the Great Sage Plain in the Mesa Verde Heartland
With Jason Chuipka. Introducing the Great Sage Plain—the most important Ancestral Puebloan environment you’ve never heard of. The archaeological sites of the Great Sage Plain are important to many groups. To some they exist in a sacred landscape, while to others they are a source of data for study of the past, or are interesting elements of a beautiful place seemingly frozen in time. Utah SHPO | Learn more and register (free) »
May 15 In-Person Event (Hanover NM): Indigenous Rock Imagery of the Sonoran Desert
With Aaron Wright. Petroglyphs and pictographs are integral to the cultural traditions of Indigenous communities the world over, and especially so in the Sonoran Desert where they abound on the countless chocolate- and charcoal-colored rocks. It’s natural to ask what they may mean, but perhaps a more appropriate question is what do they do? These images move us in remarkable ways, and therein lies some of their significance. This presentation will review the diversity of rock imagery across the Sonoran Desert with one eye on common threads and the other on unique regional qualities.6:00 p.m. potluck dinner (bring your own plates, utensils, and a dish for yourself or to share); 6:30 p.m. business meeting, followed by the presentation. Roundup Lodge, 91 Acklin Hill Rd. Grant County Archaeological Society | Email gcasnm.org@gmail.com for more info »
May 16 Online Event: Of Noble Kings Descended: Colonial Documents and the Ancient Southwest
With Steve Lekson. Early Spanish and Mexican records can tell us much about the ancient Southwest. Dr. Lekson will review some of them that lend insights for deeper history relevant to places like Chaco Canyon and Casas Grandes, and will contextualize these with Native accounts and archaeological data. Third Thursday Food for Thought series (Old Pueblo Archaeology Center) | Learn more and register (free) »
May 17 In-Person Event (Tucson AZ): Tucson Archaeology Happy Hour
Pre-Monsoon edition! Drag your colleagues along—guaranteed fun—friends & family welcome. Borderlands Brewing, 119 E Toole, 5:00 p.m.
June 1 In-Person Event (Oro Valley AZ): National Trails Day Evening Hike at Catalina State Park
Bring your flashlight and head out to the park to celebrate with a family-friendly hike (ages 8 and up; no pets). Park at the end of the main road and meet at the Sutherland Trailhead no later than 6:00 p.m. We’ll take the Sutherland Trail to Canyon Loop, catching Romero Canyon on the return. Town of Oro Valley Parks & Rec | Learn more and register now (free) »
Remember to send us notice of upcoming webinars and Zoom lectures, tours and workshops, and anything else you’d like to share with the Friends. Thanks!