Dear Friends,
This week, I’d like to highlight some of the work of our cyberSW team, led by Vice-President of Research Jeff Clark and cyberSW manager Josh Watts. Before diving into specifics of their work, I’d like to ask you to consider our digital world from a 30,000-foot perspective.
Right now, as I type, I can pick up my phone and, in less than 10 minutes, purchase a ticket for a flight halfway around the world on some future date. I can specify which seat I want and what dietary preferences I have. It’s remarkable when you think about it, and I never take such an activity for granted. As we learned from the CrowdStrike fiasco several weeks ago, the digital world is a fragile thing.
My ability to purchase those airline tickets is based on contributions by a large number of corporations, governments, and agencies that came together and agreed to use the behind-the-scenes systems that we consumers never encounter, or only see the “user interface” of. There is a HUGE infrastructure that needs to work seamlessly.
For the most part, at present, archaeology lacks the kind of global infrastructure and standards that businesses create and maintain. From a computing perspective, a global search of archaeological collections and data should be less complicated than purchasing a ticket on a vehicle flying on the other side of the planet at a future date. So why can’t we search archaeological databases on a much larger scale?
The problem goes back to the lack of financial, logistical, and technical support. To be blunt, there aren’t enough well-funded corporations, governments, and nongovernmental organizations working together to support archaeological research. As a result, the discipline has never agreed to a universal series of terms and systems. Consider, for example, the lowly pot sherd. Should we name and describe it by type (Kiatuthlana black-on-white?) or function (Cup? Bowl? Vessel? Ceremonial receptacle?). The permutations are nearly endless.
Even if we had agreed on a standard nomenclature, archaeologists have not been good when it comes synthesizing and presenting their own data, much less data generated by others. This is where our cyberSW program comes in.
cyberSW is a digital product that Archaeology Southwest and its partners make available, free of charge, to anyone who has internet access. “cyberSW” refers to the underlying database and the webpage “gateway” people use to access the data. Its main purpose is to facilitate regional-scale synthetic research and to provide students, avocational archaeologists, cultural experts from Tribal Nations, and others an opportunity to explore and compare site and artifact data from across the American Southwest and northwest Mexico. (Thanks to the National Science Foundation for partially supporting the development of cyberSW over the years.)
Behind the scenes—and critically—cyberSW runs on software. That software needs to be updated occasionally, and our team recently and successfully navigated a major software modernization effort for its Neo4j database platform and Spring Java framework. As Josh is quick to remind us, however, the best-case scenario during such software upgrades is that no one notices when it happens. Achieving that is a big deal for us, but it takes a lot of work that few ever see.
On the content side, the cyberSW team spent the summer adding high-resolution intrasite archaeological datasets from 1990s excavations in the Tonto Basin east of Phoenix. They uploaded data from about 110 sites from Arizona State University’s Roosevelt Platform Mound Study and 20 sites from Desert Archaeology’s Roosevelt Community Development Study. Those datasets include information on features, stratigraphy, excavation units and levels, ceramics, flaked and ground stone, animal bone, worked shell, and plant remains.
This fall (stay tuned!) the cyberSW team will release the cyberSW Digital Indigenous Field Guide, which is focused on birds of the Southwest. It will include limited, approved, and appropriate O’odham language and cultural knowledge developed in partnership with the Gila River Indian Community (among others). The cyberSW team has a grant application pending with the National Endowment for the Humanities to build an even larger Indigenous field guide for a wide range of plants and animals.
Finally, the team continues to work with our advisory Tribal Working Group for specific input, and to more broadly discuss topics such as data sovereignty and collaboration.
There is lots of work yet to do, but synthetic databases like cyberSW will continue to lead cutting-edge archaeological research. If you are interested in supporting this important work in any way, please let us know!
Until next week,
Steve Nash
President & CEO, Archaeology Southwest
NPS Awards Funds to Aid NAGPRA Compliance
The National Park Service (NPS) has allocated $3 million in grants to support the consultation, documentation, and repatriation of Native American ancestral remains and cultural items. These grants, awarded to 13 Tribes and 21 museums, are part of the ongoing efforts under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). … Chuck Sams, Director of the NPS, emphasized the significance of these efforts: “The National Park Service is committed to supporting these important efforts to reconnect and return the remains of Tribal ancestors and other cultural resources to the communities they belong to. These grants help ensure Native American cultural heritage isn’t kept in storage, cast aside, or forgotten.” Native News Online | Read more »
Pima County Welcomes Kris Gade as Director of Conservation Lands & Resources
Kris Gade started as director of the Pima County Conservation Lands & Resources Department (CLR) on July 23, less than a month after the department— which brings together the conservation functions of two County departments— officially launched. In a way, though, Gade has been preparing for her new position for most of her life. Before coming to the County, she was assistant environmental administrator at the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT), a position she held for nearly 12 years. … She also worked on a number of conservation-related projects, including Phoenix’s South Mountain Freeway expansion, where her role ranged from planning wildlife crossings to coordinating with important stakeholders. “We were considering natural resources as part of cultural resources which meant we were coordinating with the Gila River Indian Community Tribal Historic Preservation Office as well as their Department of Environmental Quality,” Gade said. Pima County Newsletter | Read more »
Gade is the spouse of our colleague Joshua Watts. Her director role is a revised and expanded version of the position Bill Doelle’s wife, Linda Mayro, recently retired from.
Continuing Coverage: SunZia Construction Causing Erosion
Construction from the SunZia transmission line project has created “extensive erosion” and environmental damage because the company has failed to install control measures, according to a letter from five Southern Arizona environmental groups and joined by Archaeology Southwest. In the letter published Tuesday, the organizations argued Pattern Energy has not implemented erosion control measures as part of the company’s development plan for the SunZia Southwest Transmission Project, which includes two power lines that will carry about 3,500 megawatts of electricity across around 520 miles of federal, state and private land between New Mexico’s SunZia Wind project and Central Arizona. Paul Ingram in the Tucson Sentinel | Read more »
Video: Traditional Squash Preparation
The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community’s Community Garden staff invited O’odham Action News to the small garden space outside of the Cultural Resources Department offices on July 12 to demonstrate how to prepare squash after it has been harvested. O’odham Action News | Watch now »
Commentary: Art and Community in the Salton Sea
The Salton Sea, located in Southern California’s Imperial Valley, has long been a cautionary tale of climate disaster, corporate greed, and political inaction. The plight of its residents has historically been ignored or erased from broader political discourse. Press releases, news articles, and blogs describe the Sea’s communities as “tired,” “dilapidated,” “abandoned,” and even “post-apocalyptic.” … As an archaeologist interested in the perseverance of life in “ruined” places, I came to the Salton Sea to learn about residents’ creative solutions for adapting to the region’s challenges. What I found was a resolute and resourceful community inventing an alternative vision of a sustainable future. Meredith Reifschneider for SAPIENS | Read more »
Position Announcement: Postdoctoral Research Scholar (ASU)
The School of Human Evolution and Social Change (SHESC) (https://shesc.asu.edu) at Arizona State University (ASU) invites applications for a Postdoctoral Research Scholar under the supervision of the Curator of Collections, Center for Archaeology and Society Repository (CASR). The Postdoctoral Research Scholar will oversee the documentation and organization of archaeological collections subject to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) from non-federal lands under the control of the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR). This position will also help with consultation efforts with Native American Tribes and assist in the teaching of ancestor documentation protocols and bioarcheological methods to relevant CASR staff and students. Arizona State University | Learn more »
Position Announcement: NAGPRA Assistance Program Coordinator
The NAGPRA Assistance Program Coordinator will oversee, manage, and provide technical and logistical assistance to BIA in the identification, inventory, and repatriation or appropriate disposition of BIA-controlled Native American cultural items, including Ancestral human remains, held in at least 10 museums and repositories across the American West and Great Plains. This role requires extensive knowledge of NAGPRA regulations, strong project and data management skills, experience with Tribal consultation, and the ability to lead and collaborate within a diverse team of specialists. Archaeology Southwest | Learn more »
August Live Lectures (Santa Fe NM)
8/19, Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone), Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History; 8/26, Hampton Sides, The Wide Wide Sea. 6:00 p.m., Hotel Santa Fe, $20 at the door or $75 for the series of 4 lectures. Southwest Seminars | Learn more »
REMINDER: TONIGHT, Aug. 15 Online Event: An Embarrassment of Riches: Tree-Ring Dating and the (Mis-) Interpretation of Southwestern Archaeology
With Steve Nash. Nash will examine the history of Southwestern archaeological tree-ring dating to explore what might, or might not, be reasonable to infer from large sets of tree-ring dates. In so doing, he will weave a tapestry of fascinating historical vignettes from the activities of big-name archaeologists and other scientists, many of whom were based at the University of Arizona. Third Thursday Food for Thought series (Old Pueblo Archaeology Center) | Learn more and register (free) »
Aug. 21 Online Event: How Stone Tool Reduction Styles Varied (or Didn’t) between Social Units/Family Groups at the Harris, La Gila Encantada, and Elk Ridge Sites
With Dylan Person. Person’s research investigates flaked stone debitage, a class of artifacts that includes simple stone flakes used for cutting tasks, blanks for more complex tools, and stone debris resulting from lithic reduction. His talk will describe how he has used rock identification and the size and shape of debitage flakes to determine technologically based styles present in the three Mimbres sites described above. He also will discuss how these relate to social groups at the individual sites as well as in the greater Mimbres area overall. A Q&A session will follow his talk. 6:00 p.m. MDT. Grant County Archaeological Society | Email gcasnm.org@gmail.com for Zoom link »
Sept. 5 Online Event: Two Years of Zooarchaeological Research from the Northern Chaco Outliers Project
With Jonathan Dombrowsky. Crow Canyon Archaeological Center’s Northern Chaco Outliers Project, begun in 2016, focuses on the Lakeview Community, a collection of four neighboring Chaco period Great Houses located in southwestern Colorado. Ongoing fieldwork at the Haynie site, which encompasses two of the Lakeview Community Great Houses, is a substantial portion of the project. Zooarchaeology is the dynamic study of past human-animal interaction through the analysis of nonhuman animal remains, and is one critical area of study in the larger Northern Chaco Outliers Project. Dr. Dombrosky will discuss findings from two years of archaeofaunal analysis at the Haynie site. He examines how such material was identified, the preservation of skeletal material, fascinating specimens recovered from the site (like bison and wolf remains), and what these findings can tell us about past Pueblo life. Crow Canyon Archaeological Center | Learn more and register (free) »
Video Channel Roundup
Time to get caught up with recent videos and webinars at the YouTube channels of our Partners and Friends. A simple click on any channel will show what’s new!
(And please do let us know if your channel isn’t in this list but should be.)
Amerind Foundation
Archaeology Southwest
Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society
Arizona State Museum
Aztlander
Bears Ears Partnership
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Grand Canyon Trust
Grand Staircase Escalante Partners
Mesa Prieta Petroglyphs Project
Mission Garden (Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace)
Museum of Indian Arts and Cultures
Museum of Northern Arizona
Old Pueblo Archaeology Center
San Diego Archaeological Center
School for Advanced Research
Southwest Seminars
The Archaeological Conservancy
Verde Valley Archaeology Center
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!