Southwest Archaeology Today for July 21, 2005

Archaeology making the news: A service of the Center for Desert Archaeology

– Excavations at Ridges Basin, A Pithouse Village Southwest of Durango: Eighty sites, including 72 pit structures, will have been excavated by the time the archaeological field season ends Sept. 30, Potter said. The Sacred Ridge, which overlooked wetlands, was the most populated site, occupied right up to the departure of the ancestral Puebloans. Three years of data analysis will follow the conclusion of field work, Potter said. Finally, all artifacts, photographs, maps and written records will be housed at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores. All material will be available to researchers and the general public. The Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe are interested in the educational and archaeological aspects of the project.
http://tinyurl.com/b4srm – Durango Herald

Fires on Ute Mountain Reservation may have not Damaged Ancient Sites: Air surveillance at a 200-acre fire on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation showed that a world-class archaeological preserve appears to be largely intact, tribal officials said Wednesday.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_2878031

-Traveling Exhibit on Roadside Archaeology (Carlsbad, NM) More than 50 years of roadside archeology are on display in Carlsbad. A traveling exhibit from the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the Laboratory of Anthropology at the Museum of New Mexico, entitled