Preservation Archaeology Today

Preservation Archaeology Today (PAT) is a free, weekly e-mail news digest. In addition to sharing regional archaeology news, events, opportunities, and publications, PAT connects readers with news and commentary on U.S. public lands policy, global heritage protection and preservation, and the peopling of the North and South American continents. Review our submission guidelines here.

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Banner image: Paul Vanderveen

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Potential Impacts of Freezes and Firings at NPS

Dear Friends, In my note here on November 7, 2024, I quoted the following passage from Rabbi Abraham Heschel: How strange we are in the world and how presumptuous our doings. Only one response can maintain us: Gratefulness for witnessing the wonder; for the gift to our unearned right to live, t...

Oil & Gas Advocate Named as Director of the Bureau of Land Management

Dear Friends, These are difficult times. Our world is changing, and changing rapidly. The new presidential administration is attacking the people, programs, policies, places, and values at the very core of Archaeology Southwest’s work. The body blows are coming fast and furious, and th...

Our Public Lands Are Once Again in Jeopardy

Dear Friends, As I said last week, one of the joys of working at Archaeology Southwest is that no one day is like another. We work on a wide range of mission-driven projects that have different timelines and cadences. We can’t control external events that have an impact on what we do, we simply...

What Will Happen to Our Public Lands?

Dear Friends, One of the joys of working at Archaeology Southwest is the daily surprise. One day, Allen Denoyer will come in showing off a beautiful Acheulean hand axe he just made. The next, we’ll be learning new facts at the fourth installment of our fantastic Archaeology Café series on d...

AZ Gov. Pledges $7M to Aid ASM NAGPRA Compliance

Dear Friends, Archaeology Southwest currently has two dozen full-time employees working on everything from original scientific research to Tribal collaboration, from site and landscape preservation to outreach activities, and from raising money to running the business of a complex nonprofit. W...

NEH Awards Support Preservation Archaeology Projects

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 h...

Meet the Newest National Monuments

Dear Friends, Just over four years ago, I published a Curiosities column at SAPIENS.org on fascinating archaeological tree-ring research that reconstructed ancient Indigenous fire management systems in northern New Mexico. (See also Archaeology Southwest Magazine Vol. 30, No. 4, “Fire Adds Rich...

A Preservation Win: Canyon de Chelly Bans Commercial Air Tours

Dear Friends, Happy New Year! As usual this time of year, when the common-era [CE] (a.k.a. Christian) calendar rolls over, we often find time reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re headed. Media and various apps publish summaries of significant events and milestones; many folks make N...

More-than-a-Conversation with Sec. Haaland

Dear Friends, The phrase “you are the company you keep” and its variants are so common that it is difficult to pin down a precise origin. Philosophers, theologians, parents, coaches, and sages have all used the aphorism when teaching others. Why do I bring it up here and now? Archaeology S...

Schwartz Appointed as City of Phoenix Archaeologist

Dear Friends, As Bob Dylan sang in 1964, “The times they are a-changing.” It’s a truism, but one that rings truer in that there is more change in some moments than others. Over the past week, the archaeological and cultural heritage spaces in which Archaeology Southwest operates have wit...

New Study Sheds Some Light on Canid-Human Relations

Dear Friends, Earlier this week we wrapped up the first half of our 2024–2025 Archaeology Café series on the archaeology of dogs with an amazing lecture by Audrey T. Lin of the American Museum of Natural History. Her presentation, “The History of Coast Salish Woolly Dogs,” focused on resea...

In Memoriam: John Douglass

Dear Friends, It’s been a busy few weeks here at Archaeology Southwest! From research to outreach, site preservation to advocacy, administration to planning, there’s been a lot of everything lately. As we prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday and a one-week break from this newsletter, I wanted...

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