Southwest Archaeology Today for Dec. 14, 2005

Archaeology Making the News – A Service of the Center for Desert Archaeology

– Volunteers Invited to Help Excavate Portions of the Tucson Presidio: Those of a certain vintage recall when the phrase “I can dig it” was a slang term for “I know what you mean.” Today, the phrase means you’re invited to help dig (up) and sift through some of Tucson’s historic and prehistoric past as part of the city’s Rio Nuevo Project. Desert Archaeology Inc. will trench and screening subsoil at the southwest corner of West Washington Street and North Church Avenue, on a parcel occupied more than 200 years ago by a Spanish Colonial-era presidio (fortress), and several hundred years before that by a prehistoric Hohokam-era pit house community.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/intucson/history_culture/121305a5_presidio

– Groundbreaking Ceremony for the City of Tucson’s Presidio Reconstruction will be held Thursday – Dec 15th at 11:00, located at the intersection of Church and Washington St.

– Peopling of the New World – New Evidence from Skull Morphology: For decades it has been believed that the first peoples to populate North and South America crossed over from Siberia by way of the Bering Strait on a land-ice bridge. However, a new study examining the largest collection of South American skulls ever assembled suggests that a different population may have crossed the bridge to the New World 3,000 years before those Siberians. (Thanks to Terry W. Colvin for submitting this source.)
http://www.livescience.com/history/051212_american_settlers.html

– Peopling of the New World (2) – The Origin of the Domesticated Bottle Gourd: Thick-skinned bottle gourds widely used as containers by prehistoric peoples were likely brought to the Americas some 10,000 years ago by individuals who arrived from Asia, according to a new genetic comparison of modern bottle gourds with gourds found at archaeological sites in the Western Hemisphere
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-12/hu-ahb121305.php

– Mesoamerican Archaeology – Amazing Ancient Mural Revealed: Archaeologists today revealed the final section of the earliest known Maya mural ever found, saying that the find upends everything they thought they knew about the origins of Maya art, writing, and rule. The painting was the last wall of a room-size mural to be excavated. The site was discovered in 2001 at the ancient Maya city of San Bartolo in the lowlands of northeastern Guatemala.
http://tinyurl.com/75kgt – National Geographic

– New Video on the Archaeology Channel: Archaeology can add a whole new layer of meaning to a well known story. A prime (and seasonally significant) example of this is illustrated by Herod: The Builder King, the latest video feature on our nonprofit streaming-media Web site, The Archaeology Channel. The Book of Matthew relates that Herod, King of the Jews, ordered the slaughter of the innocents to eliminate a potential challenger to his throne. Then came the birth of Jesus Christ, marked in our day by Christmas. But what was the historical context? This video describes the life and times of Herod the Great, builder-king of Judea, who ushered in a new age for Judaism and ironically laid the groundwork for the emergence of Christianity. An enigmatic ruler “with larceny in his heart and blueprints in his veins,” King Herod strove to make Judea a showcase of the Roman Empire.
http://www.archaeologychannel.org