Dear Friends,
As do many archaeologists, I love hiking. It’s great to be out in nature, observing the landscape, thinking about what life was like in the past, and looking for evidence of those lives. It’s calming. It’s good for us. It is what we bipedal apes evolved to do—walk with our hands free.
Still, I’m a city-boy from Chicago, and I also LOVE walking in cities. It’s the best way to get a feel for a place, to interact with its inhabitants, to see its sights and smell its scents.
As some of my friends know, I walk into and out of airports whenever I can. This peculiar habit began in Albuquerque more than 20 years ago. I rented a car to attend a conference at the University of New Mexico, then realized the university was less than three miles from the airport! “I should’ve just walked,” I realized. So next time, I did. Since then, I’ve walked into or out of Boston-Logan, Chicago-Midway, Las Vegas, Miami, San Diego, San Jose, Tucson (9 miles, just two weeks ago), Washington-National, and Wellington, New Zealand.
Our human ancestors and relatives did the same thing (well, not with airports). They walked. Everywhere. With astonishing frequency and often with a paucity of equipment. In many parts of the world, many people still walk. A lot.
Preservation Anthropologist Aaron Wright is currently researching Indigenous trail systems that crisscross the Sonoran Desert. Nearly all of the artifacts he finds out on that landscape are within 50 meters of those trail systems. That makes sense, because it might have been dangerous to wander too far off. He is also documenting the fact that most of the Spanish Colonial and Historic period trails follow ancient Indigenous trails. That’s not necessarily surprising, but archaeologists haven’t really documented and acknowledged that fact until recently.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Vice-President of Research Jeff Clark, President Emeritus Bill Doelle, and a host of employees and research associates at Archaeology Southwest and Desert Archaeology, Inc., conducted massive amounts of research into a complicated archaeological question that scholars call the “Salado Phenomenon.” To make a long-story short (and over-simplified!), the Salado Phenomenon consists of multicolored ceramics, symbols, and multistoried structures that appear all-of-an-archaeological-sudden in south-central Arizona at about 1300. Thanks to Jeff, Bill, and others, we now know the Salado Phenomenon resulted from the arrival of migrants from the greater Kayenta region of northeastern Arizona. Migrants who walked all those miles. With all their stuff, their families, their thoughts, and their dreams. Amazing.
Halfway across the world in Kenya, late last year paleoanthropologists announced the stunning discovery of 1.5-million-year-old fossil footprints of two of our primate ancestors, virtually side-by-side (previously, in 1975, specimens of the two species were found in the same stratigraphic layer). The Paranthropus boisei footprints certainly look like those of a bipedal ape, but they also don’t resemble yours or mine. The Homo erectus footprints, however, look startingly familiar, for they are our direct though distant ancestors. It makes me wonder what it would have been like to walk the land with individuals from a “distant cousin” species. Neighbors! I hope they waved, nodded, smiled, met, and engaged in all the other activities that make us and our hominin ancestors so fascinating.
Leonardo da Vinci once wrote “the human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.” I couldn’t agree more. If you can, go take a walk!
Until next week,
Steve Nash
President & CEO, Archaeology Southwest
Banner image: Yellow-headed blackbirds, courtesy of Caitlynn Mayhew
NEH Awards Support Preservation Archaeology Projects
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today [Jan. 14] announced $22.6 million in grants for 219 humanities projects across the country. Among these are grants that will establish protocols for the stewardship and voluntary return of unethically acquired archaeological and ethnographic artifacts to their communities of origin; enrich K–12 educators’ understanding and teaching of the American Revolution through workshops at lesser-known historic sites around Boston; and produce an immersive virtual replica of the former Mount Pleasant Industrial Indian Boarding School, a boarding school established in Michigan by the U.S. government in 1893 to forcibly assimilate Native American children. National Endowment for the Humanities (press release) | Read more »
Archaeology Southwest [Digital Humanities Advancement Grants]
Project Director: Joshua Watts; Caitlynn Mayhew (co-project director)
Project Title: Expanding cyberSW: From Archaeological Research to Cultural Revitalization
Project Description: The enhancement of the cyberSW archaeology platform by including Indigenous cultural and language content relating to plant and animal Cultural Keystone Species and a redesign of the platform to make it more user-friendly, including on mobile devices.
Read Archaeology Southwest’s press release on this prestigious award »
University of Arizona [Preservation and Access Education and Training]
Project Director: Peter Brewer
Project Title: Experiential Training of the Next Generation of Museum Professionals through American Southwest Cultural Heritage Collections
Project Description: Paid internships for twelve undergraduates and twelve MLIS students at the University of Arizona to work with humanities collections at the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research (LTRR) and learn best practices in collection and archival management, and a workshop on wet salvage for interns and other emerging professionals in the region.
University of California, Los Angeles [Research and Development]
Project Director: Lyssa Stapleton
Project Title: Developing a Standard for Shared Stewardship and Voluntary Return of International Cultural Objects
Project Description: The development of a standard for shared stewardship and voluntary returns of unprovenanced or unethically acquired archaeological and ethnographic artifacts to their communities of origin.
Bears Ears Resource Management Plan Released
The five Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission proudly announce the finalization of the Bears Ears Resource Management Plan (RMP), a historic achievement for the management of Bears Ears National Monument that underscores the power of unity, trust, and shared responsibility in land stewardship. This moment represents a transformative step forward in fostering collaborative partnerships between Tribal Nations and the federal government. … “Bears Ears National Monument embodies our ancestral ties and sacred landscapes,” said Craig Andrews, Vice Chairman of The Hopi Tribe and Bears Ears Commissioner. “Our Navoti (knowledge) of Hopi presence, expressed through ceremony, prayer, and pilgrimage, reflects our deep connection to Hoon Naq’vu (Bears Ears). This management plan is a testament to the trust and cooperation that form the foundation of collaborative management, affirming Tribal knowledge and the shared responsibility of stewarding these lands together for future generations to come.” Bears Ears Commission (press release) via the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition | Read more »
Today [Jan. 14] the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service announced approval of the Resource Management Plan for Bears Ears National Monument. This decision marks the conclusion of a multi-year collaborative planning effort to ensure protections for the Monument’s sacred, ancestral homelands, while allowing for appropriate uses of this culturally significant landscape. … The approved plan incorporates Tribal input, feedback from cooperators, stakeholders, and the public, and is informed by the best available science, including Indigenous Knowledge, to ensure balanced use and protection of important resources. The Presidential Proclamation establishing the monument called for Tribal co-stewardship of the monument and established the Bears Ears Commission, comprised of representatives from five Tribes whose ancestral homelands are in part encompassed by the monument. The approved plan emphasizes resource protection and the use of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge and perspectives for the stewardship of the Bears Ears landscape. US Bureau of Land Management (press release) | Read more »
Perspectives on Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Other Public Lands in a Time of Uncertainty
The Supreme Court turned back a push by the state of Utah to wrest control of vast areas of public land from the federal government, marking a small victory for land conservation advocates who worry that similar efforts may escalate in a Republican-controlled Washington. The high court on Monday refused to let the Republican-controlled state file a lawsuit seeking to bring the land and its resources under state control. The decision came in a brief order in which the court did not explain its reasoning, as is typical. It marks the latest roadblock for states in a running feud with the U.S. government over who should control huge swaths of the West and the enormous oil and gas, timber, and other resources they contain. Lindsay Whitehurst and Hannah Schoenbaum for the Associated Press | Read more »
A December 2024 poll of 500 registered voters in the beehive state by Republican public opinion research firm New Bridge Strategy shows that Utahns get out onto their national public lands frequently, and in very high numbers. The survey also confirms, yet again, that Utah voters overwhelmingly support national monuments in general, and Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in particular (71% and 74%, respectively), and this support is strong across political parties and demographics. Importantly, the poll also reveals that nearly nine in 10 Utah voters support a central role for Native American tribes in managing their ancestral lands. Here’s a look at the poll’s key findings. Tim Peterson at the Grand Canyon Trust | Read more »
“The final plan takes important steps towards protecting Bears Ear’s unique natural and cultural landscape, while at the same time providing opportunities for respectful appreciation and enjoyment of this remarkable place. The plan is also the first of its kind, incorporating significant and meaningful input from Tribal Nations through the Bears Ears Commission,” said Judi Brawer, SUWA Wildlands Attorney. “Unfortunately, Utah Governor Spencer Cox and other anti-public land adversaries continue their attacks on Bears Ears, preferring extraction and destruction over management for the benefit of all Americans. SUWA remains deeply committed to continuing our work to protect and defend the Monument for current and future generations.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance | Read more »
The Bureau of Land Management oversees one out of every 10 acres of land in the United States. Longtime Montana resident Tracy Stone-Manning has led the agency since September 2021, slowly rebuilding it following the exodus of experienced employees during the headquarters’ brief relocation to Grand Junction, Colorado, under the first Trump administration. Under Stone-Manning’s leadership, the BLM raised royalty rates for oil and gas companies, formalized conservation as a valid land use alongside extractive activities like drilling and grazing, and ended new federal coal sales in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. But the agency’s focus seems likely to shift away from renewable energy and conservation this year, given the incoming Trump administration’s determination to prioritize drilling, which has seen record production in recent years. High Country News sat down with Stone-Manning in Missoula, Montana, in early January to ask about housing development on federal lands and industry’s role in the renewable energy boom. We also discussed the future of her attempts to promote conservation, and more. Kylie Mohr for High Country News | Read more »
Tohono O’odham Nation and USBLM-Tucson Sign Co-Stewardship Agreement
In late December, the Tohono O’odham Nation and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Tucson Field Office signed a Co-Stewardship Agreement for federal lands in the Baboquivari and Coyote Mountains. KVOA News 4 | Watch now »
Grant Award Supports Trail Restoration in Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park is a 125,000-acre swath of sacred reservation land about 20 miles south of Cortez, Colorado. The tribe offers guided tours of the area, which include showing potsherds, cliff dwellings, and art on canyon walls from ancient Ute, Hopi, and Puebloan peoples. The Tribal Park is in the same valley as Mesa Verde National Park. The Tribal Park features art on canyon walls, cliff dwellings, and shards of pottery from Indigenous people from hundreds of years ago. One trail in the park, the Pool Canyon Trail, has been closed since 2021. Great Outdoors Colorado awarded the Ute Mountain Ute tribe a $44,190 grant to help restore the Tribal Park’s Pool Canyon trail. Clark Adomaitis for KSUT Four Corners Public Radio | Listen now or read more »
10th Annual Repatriation Conference Will Focus on New NAGPRA Regulations
The Association on American Indian Affairs will host its 10th Annual Repatriation Conference next month, focusing on new federal regulations and featuring training on cultural heritage protection. The conference, titled “Igniting Change,” will take place February 25–27, 2025, at the Paragon Resort in Marksville, Louisiana. The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe will host the gathering, which includes workshops on the new Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) regulations that took effect in January 2024. “As we prepare to host the 10th Annual Repatriation Conference, we are honored to welcome Native Nation leaders, cultural practitioners, and advocates from across the country,” said Tunica-Biloxi Chairman Marshall Pierite. “This milestone gathering underscores the vital work of reclaiming and protecting our Ancestors, sacred items, and cultural heritage.” Native News Online | Read more »
Podcast: The 2024 Updated NAGPRA Regulations
Host Jessica Yaquinto chats with Krystiana Krupa (NAGPRA Program Officer for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Blythe Morrison (Collections Manager at BLM Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum and a citizen of the Blackfeet Nation), Jayne-Leigh Thomas (Director of the NAGPRA Office at Indiana University), and Chance Ward (NAGPRA Coordinator for History Colorado; Lakota [Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe]). The panel talks about the 2024 regulation changes to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), including Federal Collection Reporting, Inventory Resubmission Deadlines, and Duty of Care. The discussion spends extra time with Duty of Care’s three main components: a) museums must consult with tribes on how to care for a collection b) deference to tribal knowledge c) access, research, and exhibition is prohibited without consent. The panelists also discuss how they’ve been applying the new regulations and what’s been successful for them, as well as main challenges that they are experienced or heard. Heritage Voices | Listen now (transcript available) »
Lessons from a Saguaro
Park officials measured Grandpa’s growth rings and examined his scars, and they determined that he was 200 years old — ancient for a saguaro, who have an average lifespan of around a century and a half. This means he would have been alive in the early 1800s, more than 150 years before the establishment of Catalina State Park, back when Tucson was part of the Northern Mexico state of Sonora, with a population of no more than 1,000 people. This was an era of Indigenous displacement and dispossession, of Spanish missions and Catholic proselytization. Grandpa would have seen all of this and more. He would have been one of millions of his kind; the urban sprawl that has diminished the saguaro’s Sonoran Desert range was still another century away. Ruxandra Guidi in High Country News | Read more »
Internship Opportunities (Cortez CO)
2025 internships at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center are now open for application! Open to undergraduate and graduate students in archaeology, anthropology, education, and related fields. Session 1 is May 11–July 18, with internship positions for the lab, field, zooarchaeology, and education. Session 2 is July 27–October 3, with internship positions for the lab and field. Application deadline: March 3, 2025. Crow Canyon Archaeological Center | Learn more »
January Live Lectures (Santa Fe NM)
Jan. 20, Joseph H. Suina (Cochiti Pueblo), Our Pueblo Feasts; Jan. 27, Mark Asquino, Spanish Connections: My Diplomatic Journey from Venezuela to Equatorial Guinea. $20 at the door. Southwest Seminars | Learn more »
TONIGHT: Jan. 16 Online Event: If the Shoe Fits
With Kevin Gilmore. Gilmore will present “If the Shoe Fits: Subarctic-style Moccasins and the Apachean Journey from the Northern Dene Homeland to the Precontact Southwest” from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. MST. Moccasins replaced sandals in the Southwest in the 1300s CE. Moccasin-wearing Apache and Navajo ancestors entering the Southwest as early as the 1300s may have influenced this change. Third Thursday Food for Thought series (Old Pueblo Archaeology Center) | Learn more and register (free) »
REMINDER: Jan. 18 In-Person Event (Tucson AZ): Chinese and Mexican Markets of the Barrio Viejo
With Kathé Kubish. Barrio Viejo is Tucson’s second oldest neighborhood. During its nearly 100 years in existence, generations of residents lived, worked, and shopped within the barrio boundaries. Grocery stores, bakeries and “meat stores” were an essential component of barrio existence, and they have a fascinating history. For decades, Chinese and Mexican markets existed side by side. Some specialized, many others simply supplied everyday needs. Some lasted a few years, others, decades. $5 per person; 2:00 p.m. in the Monsoon Room at JoJo’s Restaurant, 201 N. Court Ave. Salon and Saloon Series (Presidio San Agustín) | Learn more »
TWO SPOTS LEFT! Jan. 18 In-Person Workshop: How Did People Make Stone Tools?
With Allen Denoyer. You will use ancient techniques and replica tools to create a stone projectile point. Learn about the history of stone tools and their uses. Explore the intricate components of complete hunting technology beyond just the points. Beginners are welcome! Open to individuals 18 years and older. $50. Hands-On Archaeology (Archaeology Southwest) | Learn more and register »
Jan. 21 In-Person Event (Santa Fe NM): Archaeology/History in the Barrio de Analco, Santa Fe
With Stephen Post. For more than 900 years, humans have left their mark on the neighborhood on the south side of the Santa Fe River known as Barrio de Analco. The vague traces left by Ancestral Puebloan, Hispano, Mestizo, Indio, Genízaro, and Anglo peoples offer fleeting glimpses of the past. This talk will highlight a few exceptional studies, including recent research at the Boyle House located at 327 E. De Vargas St. These studies shed light on the customs, relationships, and identities of those who once lived in the ancient location known to modern Pueblo people as O’gha Po’oghe and Santa Fe’s non-Indigenous residents as El Barrio de Analco. 7:00 p.m., Pecos Trail Café, 2239 Old Pecos Trail. Santa Fe Archaeological Society | Learn more »
Jan. 21 In-Person Event (Tucson AZ): Cultivation, Community and Culture: The Origins of Indigenous Farming in the Sonoran Desert
With James T. Watson. The Sonoran Desert provides a rich bounty of natural resources that sustained Indigenous cultures for tens of thousands of years. The introduction of domesticated cultigens, specifically maize (corn), and beginning of farming the desert’s fertile waterways was a ‘nonevent’ that was slowly incorporated into existing lifeways. Yet, farming began to change how the Native peoples of the region interacted with their environment and constructed their communities. This talk will take you through the rich cultural tapestry we can reconstruct from the archaeological record from 4,000 years ago to the present and explore how the abundance of the Sonoran Desert continued to be a critical part that sustained Native communities. 6:30 p.m., Whiskey del bac, 2106 N. Forbes #103. Arizona State Museum | Learn more »
REMINDER: Jan. 23 In-Person Event (Sedona AZ): The Sierra Ancha Cliff Dwellings, Then & Now
With Richard C. Lange. The Sierra Ancha Cliff Dwellings are a series of pre-Columbian Native American cliff pueblos located in the Sierra Ancha Wilderness. They were built between 1280 and 1350, likely by people who migrated from the Ancestral Pueblo Kayenta region. The Sierra Ancha is home to several prominent ruin sites known as the Devil’s Chasm Fortress, the Canyon Creek Ruins, the Pueblo Canyon Ruins, the Cold Springs Canyon Ruins, and the Cooper Forks Canyon Ruins. Collectively they have been called the Cherry Creek Ruins. 3:30 p.m., Sedona Public Library, 3250 White Bear Rd. Verde Valley Chapter, Arizona Archaeological Society | Email Linda Krumrie for more information »
Jan. 31 In-Person Event (Phoenix AZ): Making Connections: Material Culture and Social Networks in the Southwest
With Robert Bischoff. Archaeologists study material culture—objects made and used by people—to explore past social relationships. This presentation combines artifact analysis and computer simulations to examine social networks in the Western Pueblo region (central Arizona to western New Mexico). Bischoff, a PhD candidate at ASU, specializes in computational archaeology, focusing on network science, GIS, and agent-based modeling to reveal social dynamics in ancient societies. Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve | Learn more »
Feb. 4 In-Person Event (Tucson AZ): Connecting and Dividing
With Matthew E. Hill. Hill will discuss “Connecting and Dividing: Dogs and European Colonists, Enslaved Africans, and Native Americans in the Chesapeake Bay Region, 1600-1800s.” At the time of European colonization, people in the Chesapeake Bay region were divided by race, class, and gender. Dr. Hill will show the complicated role of dogs in this socially dynamic region and highlight how they both connected diverse cultures and created divisions among people. 5:30 p.m., SAACA’s Catalyst Creative Collective, lower-level west wing of Tucson Mall, intersection of Oracle and Wetmore Rds. Refreshments available. Archaeology Café (Archaeology Southwest) | Learn more »
Feb. 6 Online Event: Reimagining the Story of Stallings Island, an Archaeological Conservancy Site of Enduring Value
With Kenneth E. Sassaman. Excavations in 1929 by Harvard’s Peabody Museum established Stallings Island, Georgia as one of the nation’s most significant archaeological sites of Indigenous history. Thirty-two years later it was declared a National Historic Landmark. In 1998 the site was donated to The Archaeological Conservancy, enabling its long-term care and protection. As we approach the century mark on the excavations that gave Stallings Island its cachet, it is worth reviewing what we have learned about this site since the Peabody dig and how its conservation continues to be warranted by the promise of future learning. The Archaeological Conservancy | 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!