Dear Friends,
I am thrilled to announce our lineup for the 2024–2025 Archaeology Café series, focused on dogs in North American archaeology, has now been set!
Tuesday, October 1, 2024: R.E. Burrillo, Bureau of Land Management
Tuesday, November 12, 2024: Laurie Webster, Independent Scholar
Tuesday, December 3, 2024: Audry T. Lin, American Museum of Natural History
Tuesday, February 4, 2025: Matthew T. Hill, Iowa State University
Tuesday, March 4, 2025: Martin H. Welker, Arizona State Museum
Tuesday, April 1, 2025: Brandi Bethke, University of Oklahoma
All six gatherings will be at a new venue: Catalyst Creative Collective’s cultural venue on the first floor of Tucson Mall. Our beloved Loft Cinema is undergoing renovations this fall and is not yet taking reservations for the spring. So, our dedicated Archaeology Café team—most notably director of outreach Sara Anderson and development and marketing manager Elysia Hansel—toured dozens of local venues to find a good fit. We are tremendously excited to work with Catalyst for several reasons.
First, Catalyst is owned and operated by the Southern Arizona Arts and Cultural Alliance (saaca), a fantastic regional non-profit that many of you already know and love. It is mission-driven organization dedicated to the creation, preservation, and advancement of the arts, which overlaps beautifully with Archaeology Southwest’s dedication to cultural heritage preservation and related outreach. This year, if we can’t support The Loft, another of our beloved local non-profits, we are thrilled to support Catalyst!
Second, we listen to you, our members and audience. We heard loud and clear that convenient parking is of utmost importance to you. As you know, Tucson Mall has tons of great parking! It is also centrally located, especially when viewed from a birds-eye perspective of the entire, greater Tucson metro area.
Third, it is a well-designed performance venue with great acoustics and sight-lines. It may not look like an old-school lecture hall or theatre, because it isn’t. It IS, however, a great place to convene, mingle, enjoy some (complimentary!) food and drink, and then listen to a great lecture! All six talks will occur in-person—we believe it is important to get people together, to help reconstitute a “Third Place,” one where people can convene that is not work or home.
That said, we will post videos of each lecture within several days to accommodate folks who live out of town or may not be able to attend that month. And if you could not attend but have questions for the speaker, we are more than happy to relay your queries!
Finally, Catalyst is dog friendly! Given this year’s theme, we have obtained permission for well-behaved and social canine partners to attend our lecture series, as well! Please use discretion and be honest with yourself and your dog when evaluating those criteria. And send us photos of you and your dogs so we can post them on social media and add them to the slideshow preceding the talks!
Until next week,
Steve Nash
President & CEO, Archaeology Southwest
Why Great Bend of the Gila Should Be a National Monument
Respect Great Bend of the Gila is the campaign pushing President Joe Biden to sign this area into national monument status. The campaign includes local tribes, wildlife biologists and archeologists. The proposed monument boundaries are about 70 miles of the Gila River corridor and approximately 370,000 acres of public land. In this episode of Valley 101, we hear from representatives of each of these groups. They share the history, discoveries and importance of the Gila River region to Arizonans and the nation. Kaely Monahan for the Arizona Republic | Read more »
Listen to the Valley 101 podcast episode »
At least 13 federally recognized tribes maintain spiritual and cultural connections to this land. Unfortunately, the cultural resources and rich biodiversity in this part of the Sonoran Desert are threatened by vandalism, target shooting, urban expansion, and development. A simple day hike in this breathtaking landscape is a journey of discovery, offering insights into the rich history of the Southwest. However, during my visit, witnessing the disregard some visitors show for these public lands—seeing gun cartridges, glass bottles, beverage cans, plastic food waste, and other litter left behind and the cultural resources desecrated by vandalism and target shooting—was deeply disheartening. The designation of a Great Bend of the Gila National Monument will help better manage these public lands in Arizona, providing more resources to address the various threats facing this landscape, including desecration of cultural resources, littering, and future energy development projects. Adriana Garcia in the Tucson Sentinel | Read more »
Newest National Monument Commemorates 1908 Race Riot
“This national monument will provide current and future generations an opportunity to reflect on the tragic events but also to be inspired by the resilience of the Black community and national leaders that went on to fight for social change and civil rights in America,” said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams. “I want to thank the City of Springfield, St. John’s Hospital, and the National Park Foundation for their role in making this possible. The National Park Service is honored to partner with the community to preserve the site’s archeology and tell this important story.” The national monument is located where the violent assault began, in the Badlands neighborhood, and includes the foundations of five houses destroyed in the Springfield 1908 Race Riot. Over the coming years, the National Park Service (NPS) will work with the local community and partners to plan for interpretation, commemoration, historic preservation, and visitor experiences. National Park Service (press release) | Read more »
Shifting Power Structures: Clyfford Still Museum Partners with Tribes
Building partnerships with groups historically excluded from museum spaces is often problematic because of institutionalized power structures, traditions of harm, and systemic barriers. So how can museums—historically extractive by design—shift their practices to empower these groups through restorative action? That’s the question that has guided the Clyfford Still Museum (CSM) in Denver as it has worked alongside representatives from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State to bridge regional and cultural divides, using the Museum’s collections as the starting point to build community, foster authentic connections, and open reciprocal pathways for communication. What follows is a shared telling of the initiative’s origins by Bailey Placzek, CSM Curator of Collections and Catalogue Raisonné Research and Project Manager, and Michael Holloman, enrolled Colville Tribal member (sńʕaýckstx/Lakes) and Associate Professor of Art and Coordinator of Native American Arts Outreach at Washington State University. Bailey Placzek and Michael Holloman for the American Alliance of Museums | Read more »
Interview with Chip Colwell
Chip Colwell was the senior curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science for 12 years. He was responsible for repatriating the museum’s collection of Native American items. Colwell joined Created Equal on Monday to discuss the movement to reconcile science and history with the delicate nature of native possessions. Created Equal (WDET public radio) | Listen now »
Colwell is on Archaeology Southwest’s Board of Directors.
Archaeological Resource Crime in Montana: Training the Professionals
The Save History Crew led a 40-hour training on the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) for cultural resource managers and law enforcement at the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in Billings, Montana this past July. We had about 30 students in attendance with professionals working with Federal Agencies and Tribes coming from states such as Washington, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Oregon, Nebraska, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Minnesota. The goal of the training is to prepare professionals on how to prevent, detect, and respond to archaeological resource crime. ARPA violations are a unique kind of crime because they require archaeologists and law enforcement to work together to record the crime scene. This week of training provides the tools to help these two different types of professionals work together. Anastasia Walhovd for Save History | Read more »
When Did Humans Start Cooking Food?
Cooking is important—in fact, some researchers believe it’s what allowed our human ancestors to unlock the extra calories needed to grow larger brains. So when was cooking invented? The timing is uncertain, but evidence suggests people were cooking food at least 50,000 years ago and as early as 2 million years ago. This evidence comes from two fields: archaeology and biology. One piece of archaeological evidence for cooking is cooked starch grains found in dental calculus, or hardened dental plaque. Ashley Hamer for Live Science | Read more »
August Live Lectures (Santa Fe NM)
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 »
Aug. 29 Online Event: Reassessing Archaeological Landscapes in the Mesa Verde Region using LiDAR
With Grant Coffey. For decades, archaeologists have relied on their eyes to discern and document landscape features created by Ancestral Pueblo peoples of the Four Corners region. With the introduction of new technologies and instrumentation, like LiDAR, the understanding of archaeological landscapes in the Mesa Verde region has undergone an amazing transformation. Learn how centuries-old features, such as farm fields and Chaco-era roads, are being reexamined through the lens of 21st century technology. Along with Native collaboration, this new analysis will reshape the understanding of these archaeological landscapes and the ancient communities of which they were a part. Crow Canyon Archaeological Center | Learn more and register (free) »
Sept. 13–14 In-Person Event (Española NM): Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project 25th Anniversary
Over the last 25 years our mission has focused on the protection and preservation of the cultural landscape of the Mesa Prieta region of the northern Rio Grande Valley. We welcome summer youth alumni, recorders, docents, scholars, tribal and community members who have been connected to the project over the last 25 years to share in a two-day symposium. The Symposium is free to registered participants with a suggested donation of $25/day to support our continued mission. Our featured speakers include Katherine Wells, Founder of the Project and Author of Life on the Rocks, Dr. Richard Ford, Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, and Poet Kamella Cruz from Ohkay Owingeh. Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project | Learn more »
Sept. 16 Online Event: Community Landscapes, Community Identity
With Suzanne Eckert. The Lion Mountain area is located at the boundaries of three cultural traditions: the Rio Grande region, the Cibola region, and the Mogollon region. Over time, residents of the region built a Chaco Great House, built several post-Chacoan great houses, and witnessed the arrival of immigrants from the Four Corners region. Steve Lekson aptly described this area as one with a “mixed but interesting cultural-historical dynamic”. Understanding this dynamic has been the focus of the Lion Mountain Archaeological Project (LMAP) since 2015. Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society | Learn more and register (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!