2016
27
Nov
New Data on the Domestication of Maize
New Data on the Domestication of Maize
According to an international team of scientists who have sequenced the genome of a 5,310-year-old maize cob from the Tehuacan Valley, the maize (Zea mays) grown in central Mexico more than five millennia ago was genetically more similar to modern maize than to...
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2016
28
Oct
Salad Spinners, Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometers, and Bones
Karen Gust Schollmeyer, Preservation Archaeologist
(October 28, 2016)—October introduced me to an unexpected new archaeological research tool: the salad spinner.
I’ve just returned from a very busy two weeks in southwest Colorado, where archaeological chemistry expert Jeff Ferguson and I...
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2015
02
Oct
Gopher Jaws and the Past
Karen Gust Schollmeyer, Preservation Archaeologist
(October 2, 2015)—I spent this week in beautiful southwestern Colorado working on the first phase of a new research project using animal bone chemistry to examine how people’s access to food animals changed over time in the Mesa Verde area. I ...
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2014
27
Apr
Cultural Conservatism in the Ancient Southwest - Research on the Edge of Salado
Introduction to Archaeology Southwest's Edge of Salado Research
What slows or halts the geographic spread of an ideology—especially an ideology that brings people together? In our previous work, we focused on detecting Kayenta immigrants and determining their impacts in communities across the sout...
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2013
25
Aug
Plans in Place for Hydraulic Fracturing on Chaco Culture Park Boundary
Fracking Chaco Canyon?
That's why so many are looking for salvation in two words: Mancos Shale. The formation, which extends from New Mexico into portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, is buried about a mile beneath the surface. Estimated to contain upwards of six billion barrels of oil, approx...
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2013
19
May
New Mesa Verde Interpretive Center Opens Thursday
New Mesa Verde Interpretive Center Opens Thursday
No more artifacts moldering in the “Tin Shed.” No more storing archives in nooks and crannies. No more driving a long, narrow, winding road to learn what Mesa Verde National Park has to offer. After decades of fundraising and lobbying, and fiv...
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2011
01
May
New Craig Childs' Essay Examines Looters, Collectors, Museums, and Archaeologists
New Craig Childs' Essay Examines Looters, Collectors, Museums, and Archaeologists
Human bones lie bleached and scattered, a ribcage stove in here, shoulder and arm bones over there. It looks as if a war was waged between armies of skeletons in this remote canyon south of the Arizona border. All thes...
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2010
19
Nov
Steve Lekson to be Honored by the Roy Chapman Andrews Society
Steve Lekson to be Honored by the Roy Chapman Andrews Society
Archaeologist Steve Lekson is changing the past, or at least our ideas about the past. His work at prehistoric ruins throughout the Southwest convinces him that ancient Native American societies were more complex, connected, and cosmo...
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