Southwest Archaeology Today for April 25, 2007

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

– Community Group Using Archaeology to Reconstruct Spanish Mission Site: As historically elegant and significant as it is, Mission Soledad stands as damaged goods. that’s why students such as Adrian Lopez, 23, are getting their hands muddy as they help excavate and map parts of the mission site.
http://www.cdarc.org/page/9b9m – The Californian

– BIA Offline for 5 Years: In 2001, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered Interior offices to pull the plug on their Internet connections if their computers had access to the department-managed trust that belongs to American Indians. Lamberth said the offices could reconnect to the Web after they’ve demonstrated they can protect the trust, which collects and distributes royalties paid by companies to American Indians in exchange for leasing rights to their land.
http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=2700266

– Archaeological Vandalism Site Identified, (From Bob Skiles Via ARCH-L): Thanks to all those who responded to this post. The looted site has been positively identified as the Spirit Eye Cave site situated on private property on the western edge of the Chinati Mountains in Presidio County, Texas. The rock house with green windows was also positively identified and is located about a half-mile further up the canyon from the cave. The landowner was contacted yesterday and expressed a desire to aide prosecution of the person(s) who trespassed and looted on his property.

– Fourth Annual Archaeological Film Festival Preview on the Archaeology Channel: The world’s best films and videos on archaeology and indigenous peoples are showcased at TAC Festival, which will be held 1-5 May 2007 in the Jaqua Concert Hall at The Shedd Institute in Eugene, Oregon, USA. This preview video includes a short clip from most of the 21 productions that will compete on the big screen. Film-makers from 23 countries submitted a total of 86 entries for this event, which is one of the world’s few contests in the genre of heritage film. The fourth annual installment of The Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival will take place in just a week. This event is featured in TAC Festival 2007 Preview, the latest video feature on our nonprofit streaming-media Web site, The Archaeology Channel.
http://www.archaeologychannel.org/

– Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society Offers Tour of University of Arizona Dating Labs: Our May field trip will be to the University of Arizona to tour the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and the N.S.F. Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon laboratory. These two active laboratories are among the premier dating facilities in the country.
http://www.cdarc.org/sat/ahs_field_trip.doc – MS Word Document