Art Institute of Chicago Postpones Mimbres Exhibition

Art Institute of Chicago Postpones Mimbres Exhibition
“Worlds Within: Mimbres Pottery of the Ancient Southwest,” a display of some 70 pieces from about A.D. 1100 made in what is now southwestern New Mexico, was slated to open May 26 in Regenstein Gallery, the museum’s primary space for temporary exhibitions. But James Rondeau, the Art Institute’s president and director, said that as the show approached it became increasingly clear that more work needed to be done to represent native voices in the project. “The principal thing that we have not accomplished is to have an aligned indigenous perspective, scholarly and curatorial, with the project,” he said. “And I think that ultimately for us has been the crucial realization that our ability to reflect back what we were learning needed to be done in multiple voices, not just our voice.” http://bit.ly/2K07Ee8 – Chicago Tribune

Washington Post Debuts Interactive Feature on Bears Ears
For the Hopi, the fight to preserve Bears Ears intersects with a struggle to be recognized. “Back [50 years ago] the park rangers used to give these tours, and they would always say, ‘We know that these people occupied this area in one time or another, but we don’t know what happened to them. We don’t know where they went.’ Well, today we’re changing history by telling them our side of our history… We never disappeared,” he said.” https://wapo.st/2K1Guna – Washington Post

CU Boulder Will Craft Updates to Museum at Mesa Verde
The University of Colorado has received federal money to update exhibits at the Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum to make them more interactive. The museum, located in Mesa Verde National Park, features dioramas showing Ancestral Pueblo life, exhibits with prehistoric artifacts and a chronology of Ancestral Pueblo culture, according to its website. The National Park Service, which falls under the U.S. Department of the Interior, is awarding $30,000 to CU to plan, design and develop updated exhibits at the museum, according to a news release. http://bit.ly/2K16IGq – Daily Camera (CU Boulder)

Commentary: Greater Chaco Must Be Protected
Chaco Canyon and its surrounding area, the Greater Chaco Landscape, are of great importance to the Acoma and many other Pueblos who share a similar understanding and connection to these sacred places. Within the Greater Chaco Landscape are archaeological and natural features (with archaeological traces) that are our cultural resources. Remembered in song and prayer, by place-name in each of our Pueblos’ languages, by pilgrimages seen and unseen; Chaco Canyon and the Greater Chaco Landscape are parts of our shared living history. http://bit.ly/2K0vqXu – Brian Vallo, governor for the Pueblo of Acoma and a member of the All Pueblo Council of Governors, via the Santa Fe New Mexican

Proposed Rule Change Would Undermine National Register of Historic Places
It is not news that the current administration is unfriendly to landscape scale conservation. So it is no surprise that a proposed Department of Interior (DOI) rule-making has taken another step to discourage landscape conservation. This time by making it more difficult for the public to nominate historic properties and in particular cultural landscapes to the National Register of Historic Places. http://bit.ly/2WHlG5D – Living Landscape Observer

Publication Announcement: The Davis Ranch Site
The Davis Ranch Site: A Kayenta Enclave in Southeastern Arizona, edited by Patrick D. Lyons. Amerind Studies in Anthropology Series, University of Arizona Press. https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/the-davis-ranch-site

Call to Applicants, Research Institute at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
The Research Institute at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center invites applications for a two year Postdoctoral Scholar in Pottery Analysis position as part of the Northern Chaco Outliers Project, starting in Summer 2019. We invite applications from scholars who have completed a PhD (ABD with defense date scheduled will be considered) and have research experience with archaeological pottery of the US Southwest. The research focus of this postdoctoral appointment will be on artifacts from the Northern Chaco Outliers Project, with an emphasis on pottery from Wallace Ruin. https://www.crowcanyon.org/institute/ncop-postdoc/

Oblique Views Returns to Exhibit
From April 9 to July 6, the Chandler Museum (AZ) will host Oblique Views: Archaeology, Photography, and Time. By displaying aerial photographs taken by Charles and Anne Lindbergh in 1929 alongside Adriel Heisey’s more recent rephotographs (near-exact duplicates) of the same landscapes, Oblique Views enables us to see how natural processes, technological and cultural developments, and population changes have impacted some of the past’s most special places. The exhibition was developed by Archaeology Southwest in conjunction with, and originally hosted by, the Museum of Indian Arts and Cultures in Santa Fe. http://bit.ly/2JZFXlr

Blog Post: Glen Canyon in Perspective
In modern times, Hopi people continue to visit the Glen Canyon area. We come seemingly as any visitor. We come to boat and fish in Lake Powell. We come to hike and explore. Yet we also come to pay respect to our ancestors. We recall the history of our people who once filled the canyons with their physical presence and spiritual essence. We know that among the sandstone mesas and canyons, and even below the waters of Lake Powell, there is a landscape that contains memories of Hopi history. http://bit.ly/2KaX3Ng – Lyle Balenquah, From the Earth Studio

Blog Post: The Women’s Park
Out of that sociocultural stew stepped Virginia Donaghe, a correspondent for the New York Daily Graphic who resided in Colorado Springs. In the mid-1880s she was dispatched to write a story about the ancient structures of southwestern Colorado and, like many of us, she became instantly and hopelessly addicted. She wanted to explore them, study them, draw them, photograph them, and then explore them some more. Unlike almost every other visitor to Mesa Verde at the time, however, she didn’t want to dig in them for ancient loot to carry away. She wanted to save them. http://bit.ly/2K24Rkr – R. E. Burrillo, Preservation Archaeology

Blog Post: Women’s Work
Still, thinking about women and flaked stone is too compelling an idea to abandon, even if conclusive evidence is elusive. Stone artifacts from the Gila River Farm site, a fourteenth-century pueblo in southwestern New Mexico, present one opportunity to put these ideas into practice. http://bit.ly/2TNZLIh – Stacy Ryan, Preservation Archaeology

Blog Post: Lower Gila Field Notes
Ethnography has been a major contributor to past and current understandings of Patayan archaeology because the cultural landscape of this region of the Southwest, at least as far as we know, did not witness a major social and demographic transformation on the scale of what transpired in southern Arizona (Hohokam) in the 1400s or around the Four Corners (Ancestral Pueblo) in the 1200s. In fact, Patayan archaeology of the historic era (i.e., post-Spanish contact) looks a lot like that of the pre-contact period, which is why the span of time from 1500 to 1900 is referred to as the Patayan III period rather than the Historic period, or some other label that would essentially imply the people met by the Spaniards were somehow different or alien from the Southwest’s earlier residents. http://bit.ly/2KbmsX8 – Aaron Wright, Preservation Archaeology

Lecture Opportunity, Dragoon AZ
Join Amerind scholars to hear about current research on macaws and parrots, exotic birds from south of the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico, found at archaeological sites beginning as early as A.D. 600. Several archaeologists and other scientists have been conducting research on various attributes of these birds using more precise radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA, and isotopic analysis to examine genetic lineages and sources of these birds. This “brown bag” lunch has been organized by Christopher Schwartz, Stephen Plog, and Patricia A. Gilman. Monday, April 8, 2019, 12:00–1:00pm at the Amerind Museum in Dragoon, AZ. http://www.amerind.org

Lecture Opportunity, Taos NM
Join the Taos Archaeological Society on April 9 at 7:00 p.m. for “We Have Always Lived in a Castle: A Deep History of House and Hearth. Jim Boone, Anthropology Professor at UNM-Albuquerque will be speaking on the topic of how and why it is our houses that make us distinctively human. He will trace the development of House and Hearth from Paleolithic times to the present. Kit Carson Electric, 118 Cruz Alta Rd. http://www.taosarch.org/

Lecture Opportunity, Tijeras NM
On Tuesday, April 9, at 6:30 p.m., the Friends of Tijeras Pueblo will welcome Jonathan Dombrowsky for “Demystifying Stable Isotope Analysis in Archaeological Research.” The presentation will be at the Sandia Research Center, Tijeras. http://www.friendsoftijeraspueblo.org/

Lecture Opportunity, Durango CO
The next meeting of the San Juan Basin Archaeological Society will be at 7:00 p.m., April 10, at the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Garry and Ming Adams will present: “Spirits of the Stone: A Journey to Southwestern Mystery—seeing rock art from a photographer’s eye.” There will be a social at 6:30 p.m. prior to the meeting. http://www.sjbas.org

Lecture Opportunity, Winslow AZ
Join the Homol’ovi Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society on April 10 for “Ancient Tactical Sites of Central Arizona,” a look at ancient tactical sites in the rugged uplands of the Salt and Gila River watershed and their potential roles in sociopolitical dynamics, with speaker John Welch of Archeology Southwest (Tucson) at 7:00 p.m. at the Winslow Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center (Historic Lorenzo Hubbell Trading Post), 523 W. Second St. in Winslow. You can also join us and the speaker(s) for dinner at 5:00 p.m. at the Historic La Posada Turquoise Room (on your own tab). http://bit.ly/2K4F7nE

Lecture Opportunity, Santa Fe NM
The Santa Fe Archaeological Society is pleased to announce that Elijah Naranjo Smith, a member of the next generation of Santa Clara potters and the 2003 winner of the Ron & Susan Dubin Native American Artist Fellowship Award from the School for Advanced Research, will be giving a presentation at the Pecos Trail Cafe (back room) 2239 Old Pecos Trail starting at 7:15 p.m. on Tuesday, April 16.

We’re happy to help get the word out, but we’re not mind readers! Please submit news, book announcements, and events at this link for consideration: https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/submit-to-sat/

Questions? sat-editor@archaeologysouthwest.org