Southwest Archaeology Today for Feb 20, 2008

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

– WSU and Crow Canyon Examine the “fate of the Anasazi:” Using computer simulations to synthesize both new and earlier research, a team of scientists led by a Washington State University anthropology professor has given new perspective to the long-standing question of what happened more than 700 years ago to cause the ancestral Pueblo people known as the Anasazi to abruptly end their 700-year-long occupation of the now-famous cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and other nearby communities in southwestern Colorado.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february192008/anasazi_2-19-08.php

– Ancient Human Environmental Impacts in the Americas: University of Tennessee ecologists Paul and Hazel Delcourt argue in their new book, Prehistoric Native Americans and Ecological Change, that we have underestimated the varied impacts American Indians have had on the natural environment the past 15,000 years.
http://www.cdarc.org/page/fmwt – The Columbus Dispatch

– BLM Anasazi Heritage Center, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
Receive National Trust for Historic Preservation Award: The Bureau of Land Management’s Anasazi Heritage Center and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument received the prestigious National Trust/Advisory Council on Historic Preservation Award for Federal Partnerships in Historic Preservation. The AHC and the Monument near Dolores, Colo., were among 21 national award recipients recognized during a weeklong National Preservation Conference last fall.
http://www.peoplelandandwater.gov/blm/blm_02-11-08_blms-anasazi-heritage.cfm

– Extraordinary Field School Opportunity on B.C.’s Beautiful Coast: Simon Fraser University and Tla’Amin First Nation are launching the first year of collaborative investigations in the context of the SFU Summer Field School in Archaeology and Heritage Stewardship. Focused on the spectacular Sunshine Coast and the Malaspina Complex, in the heart of Tla’Amin First Nation Territory north of Vancouver, this will be the first concerted effort to integrate the archaeology of this understudied region with Tla’Amin oral traditions and land/seascape knowledge. For students, the 15 credit hour program provides full training in archaeological survey, mapping, excavation, and lab procedure, as well as close involvement in descendent community engagement in exploring, enhancing, and applying knowledge about Tla’Amin lands and heritage. Student application review commences on March 10.
http://www.sfu.ca/archaeology/fieldschools/2008_malspina.html

– Lecture Opportunity (El Paso): February 21, 7:30 PM El Paso Archaeological Society Lecture Karl Laumbach will present “Pueblo Migrations in the Southern Southwest: Perspectives from Arizona and New Mexico” by Karl Laumbach and the Center for Desert Archaeology’s Jeff Clark. Recent investigations in the San Pedro Valley of southern Arizona have provided compelling evidence on a regional scale of two successive migrations from the Ancestral Pueblo homeland into the eastern borderlands of the Hohokam World. Concurrent investigations in the Rio Alamosa drainage of west central New Mexico have suggested two successive migrations from the Ancestral Pueblo World into the northern Mogollon World at approximately the same intervals. This paper compares and contrasts data used to detect migrants as well as the timing, tempo, social scale, and ultimate impact of population movement. Similarities and differences between the case studies have methodological and theoretical implications for migration studies that extend beyond the Southwest. El Paso Museum of Archaeology in the auditorium, 4301 Transmountain Rd, El Paso, Texas.
http://www.epas.com/newsletter.htm

– Position Announcement: Din