William Rathje Passes

Arizona Professor Emeritus William Rathje Passes
William L. Rathje, a professor emeritus at the University of Arizona who pioneered the study of modern refuse as a scientific discipline, died at his home in Tucson, Ariz., on May 24. Officials said Rathje, 66, died of natural causes. Services have not been announced. Four decades ago, Rathje, then an up-and-coming young archaeologist and already noted for his work on ancient Mesoamerican civilizations, thought that the principles and methods of archaeology could also be used to extract information about contemporary behavior in society changes over time.  http://uanews.org/node/47560

Ancient Maize Farmers of the the New World Provided Us with New Tools to Combat Hunger
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, report that ancient farmers had a stronger impact on the evolution of maize, or corn, than modern plant breeders have had on the grain — now one of the world’s top production crops.  The findings, together with a companion study on maize diversity, appear in the online edition of the journal Nature Genetics. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and conducted by scientists from 17 international institutions, including BGI, the world’s largest genomics organization. It will serve as the basis for future research in crop evolution. “These two studies provide a new and more comprehensive understanding of genomic variation in maize, which will be critically important to plant breeders as they work to increase corn yield in the face of global population  growth and climate change,” said plant geneticist Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, the lead researcher on the UC Davis-directed study. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120603191712.htm

Arizona Preservation Conference Begins June 13th 
The Arizona Preservation Foundation, Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, and the City of Prescott invite you to join them at the 10th Annual Arizona Historic Preservation Conference. This year’s conference, “100 Years of Living History” is being held in Prescott, June 13th – June 15th, 2012. http://azpreservation.com/

Carbon-14 Data from Tree Rings Indicates Mysterious Radiation Event in AD 774 or 775
Just over 1,200 years ago, the planet was hit by an extremely intense burst of high-energy radiation of unknown cause, scientists studying tree-ring data have found. The radiation burst, which seems to have hit between ad 774 and ad 775, was detected by looking at the amounts of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 in tree rings that formed during the ad 775 growing season in the Northern Hemisphere. The increase in carbon-14 levels is so clear that the scientists, led by Fusa Miyake, a cosmic-ray physicist from Nagoya University in Japan, conclude that the atmospheric level of Carbon-14 must have jumped by 1.2% over the course of no longer than a year, about 20 times more than the normal rate of variation. Their study is published online in Nature today. http://www.nature.com/news/mysterious-radiation-burst-recorded-in-tree-rings-1.10768?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20120606

Profile of BLM Archaeologist Jim Copeland
The only thing Jim Copeland likes more than telling stories is hearing them. Copeland, 57, is a senior archaeologist with the Bureau of Land Management’s Farmington Field Office. He has spent his career learning about the origins of San Juan County’s first inhabitants by studying and preserving hundreds of thousands of cultural sites east of Bloomfield. http://www.daily-times.com/farmington-news/ci_20810324/archaeologist-spends-career-linking-san-juan-countys-past?source=rss

Archaeology Magazine Reports on the Pilling Collection
n 1950, three brothers exploring Utah’s Range Creek Canyon discovered a collection of 11 clay figurines made more than 1,000 years ago by the local Fremont culture. For several decades the collection, named the “Pilling Collection” after the brothers, were displayed at locations across the state, including the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum, and in banks, courthouses, and even a hotel, becoming a much beloved state symbol. But some time between 1973 and 1974, one of the figurines disappeared and the mystery of what happened to it has lasted for almost four decades. http://www.archaeology.org/1207/trenches/fremont_slideshow.html

Archaeological Project in the Honduras Provides a Cautionary Tale of Science, Hype, and Bad Archaeology
… I personally am never surprised when new sites are found in an area where we have no previous information. Such reports increasingly come from the application of technologies originally developed for other purposes that help us overcome the challenges of survey in remote areas, and especially, in challenging environments, like those with heavy vegetation cover. But all too often, this good science is then hyped as if it was totally unprecedented, surprising, supposedly shattering all our previous ideas. So good science becomes bad archaeology.  http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2012/06/07/good-science-big-hype-bad-archaeology/

Community Festival to Honor the One Hundred and Thirty-third Anniversary of the Founding of the Salt River Pima – Maricopa Indian Community
Saturday, June 16^th : It’s the 133^rd anniversary of the establishment of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, and there’s a celebration scheduled for that evening, from 6:00 – 10:00 PM.  It’s free and open to the public, so come on out to the corner of Longmore and Osborn (Scottsdale) for some music, food, and fun!  https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/sat/community_day_flyer_2012.pdf

Travelogue – Ancient Art in Utah’s Horseshoe Canyon
In a remote arm of Canyonlands National Park, deep inside a warren of rock and sand, is one of the greatest and most mysterious collections of ancient art in North America. Towering, enigmatic pictographs, some more than 6,000 years old, stare down from stone walls, their meaning unknown yet their allure universal. This is Horseshoe Canyon, one of the loneliest places you’re likely to find in this country, nestled amid southeast Utah’s labyrinth of slickrock, arches and desert. http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-horseshoe-20120610,0,5292119.story

Lecture Opportunity – Tucson
On 18 June, 2012 at the DuVal auditorium (inside University Medical Center) 1501 N. Campbell Ave, at 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM, Allen Denoyer will present “Hands on Prehistory.” In this lecture he will discuss some of the ways experimental archaeology can help in the understanding of prehistory. Information gained from experimental studies is often crucial for understanding prehistoric technologies, and provides a way for the public to experience prehistoric technologies first-hand. Denoyer will describe several projects in which he collaborated with other researchers to provide experimental data necessary for answering research questions about prehistoric technology, and he will have examples of artifacts he has replicated to look and handle.

Thanks to Cherie Freeman for contributions to this week’s newsletter.