Southwest Archaeology Today for Feb 26, 2007

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

– Fort Stanton Declared A New Mexico State Monument: Governor Bill Richardson today announced he will establish a State Monument to protect and interpret the Fort Stanton parade grounds quadrangle, stables and related historic buildings at the storied site in southeastern New Mexico. To jump-start restoration efforts at the new monument, the governor also allocated $1 million to a project to restore and upgrade the headquarters building for use as office and museum space. “Designating this portion of Fort Stanton as a State Monument will help honor our western heritage and promote tourism in southeastern New Mexico,” Governor Richardson said. “I want this State Monument designation and headquarters building restoration to be the start of making Fort Stanton a major piece in the living history of the town of Lincoln and the state. This is the beginning of a bright future for Fort Stanton.”
http://www.governor.state.nm.us/press.php?id=361

– From Above – Exhibit on Display in Salt Lake City: Adriel Heisey’s large aerial photographs of the desert Southwest, which reveal archaeological and artistic patterns not visible from the ground, are fascinating on many levels. But maybe not as fascinating as how Heisey captures them.
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_5297822?source=rss

– Review of “House of Rain” Perpetuates “Anasazi Disappearance” Mythology: “They lived on the edge of the world, in the red mountains of the desert Southwest, in houses with T-shaped doorways tuned to arcane celestial events. They fashioned elaborate pottery, grew corn and beans in obdurate soil, built ceremonial chambers (kivas) dedicated to sun, stars and gods. By the 11th century, they were a highly evolved, technological society. And then, suddenly, they were gone. “Farming implements were left in the fields,” writes naturalist and desert ecologist Craig Childs in “House of Rain.” “Ceramic vessels remained neatly stowed in their quarters; ladles rested in bowls as if people had been swept from the land by an ill and sudden wind.”
http://www.cdarc.org/page/9xoa – Los Angeles Times

– Salt Lake Journal Review of “House of Rain”: “Thus, when people in the Southwest began to produce pottery with reds and other colors, the black-on-white pottery disappeared. That contributed to a belief, centuries later, that the people and their culture disappeared.” Childs also notes the Anasazi always moved. “In the late centuries B.C. and the early centuries A.D.,” he writes, ” . . . they occupied any one settlement for no more than 10 to 20 years . . . Rarely would a person have been born, grown old, and died in the same place.”
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_5297835?source=rss

– Interpretive Planning for Site Near Payson, Az: The Gila Community College’s Payson Campus is working with the Rim Country Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society, the Town of Payson Parks and Recreation Department, U.S. Forest Service, and the State Historic Preservation office to develop a plan for interpretive trail development at the Goat Camp archaeological site just north of the campus.
http://www.paysonroundup.com/section/localnews/story/27550