Dear Friends,
An advocacy trip to promote the protection of the Great Bend of the Gila has me meeting with the Tribal Council of the Fort Yuma Quechan (pronounced “kwahtsahn”) this morning. I’m here with Tribal Outreach Fellow Skylar Begay. The Tribal offices are on the California side of the Colorado River, just west of Yuma.
For last night’s Archaeology Café with Bill Lipe and Mary Weahkee (video coming soon), I joined the action from the Historic Coronado Motor Hotel in Yuma, and this afternoon I hope to join Aaron Wright on a Zoom call with the Gila River Indian Community. I’ll be searching for a good Internet access point in Yuma to make that happen.
I hope to be back in Tucson for dinner.
It’s good to be able to have an in-person meeting to talk about the values of the Great Bend of the Gila. Zoom provides flexibility and can introduce a bit of over-scheduling, but in-person meetings are still invaluable.
Bottom line, by whatever means feasible, we will be intensifying our outreach and advocacy for Great Bend of the Gila as we move into 2022.
I’ll share more here as the campaign rolls out,
President & CEO, Archaeology Southwest
STOP Act Passes US House of Representatives
The House of Representatives passed U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández’s (NM-03) bipartisan Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony (STOP) Act (H.R. 2930). The bill was introduced in April alongside Representatives Don Young (R-AK), Tom Cole (R-OK) and Sharice Davids (D-KS). “For years, many sacred, tribal cultural items not meant for commercial use were stolen, exported, and sold to the highest bidder,” Leger Fernández said. “Today, we acted to put an end to this and passed the Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony (STOP) Act. This bill will provide American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and federal agencies the necessary tools to protect these sacred items.” Carol A. Clark in the Los Alamos Daily Post | Read More >>
Continuing Coverage: Utah Still Fighting Bears Ears Designation
The Utah Attorney General’s office has selected a law firm in the legal challenge against President Joe Biden’s restoration of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. Biden returned 2 million acres to the national monuments in October, which former President Donald Trump had previously removed. Less than two weeks after Biden’s announcement, Attorney General Sean Reyes issued a request for proposals (RFP) for a legal team to challenge Biden’s order, which has selected the law firm of Consovoy McCarthy PLLC. The decision comes two days after a protest was held at the Utah State Capitol Rotunda, urging the state not to go forward with the suit—stating that it was a waste of money and that lawmakers should protect Utah’s lands. The firm chosen will research potential litigation because of recent opinions from members of the U.S. Supreme Court, indicating that Biden’s use of the Antiquities Act is “the wrong way to protect such vast areas of southern Utah,” according to a statement from the Attorney General’s Office. Jordan Miller in the Salt Lake Tribune | Read More >>
A national law firm that touts its repeated appearances before the Supreme Court will advise Utah officials as the state looks to upend President Biden’s recent restoration of two national monuments, the state’s attorney general said yesterday. … While federal courts have long sided with the White House over challenges to national monuments—Congress granted presidents authority to set aside federal lands as monuments to protect areas of cultural, historic or scientific interest under the Antiquities Act of 1906— [Utah Attorney General Sean] Reyes said Utah officials see a new avenue for their fight. He pointed to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ comments earlier this year in which he openly urged opponents of large-scale monuments to bring new challenges while questioning whether presidents have abused a provision that requires such sites to be the “smallest area” needed to care for the objects being protected. Jennifer Yachin for E&E News | Read More >>
Continuing Coverage: The Four Corners Potato
But let’s say a potato variety descended from the jamesii hybrids turns out to be a blockbuster, the hottest thing to hit Idaho since the Russet Burbank. After my time with [Cynthia] Wilson, and the archaeologists, I had to wonder about the breeding work in the context of the Four Corners potato’s 11,000-year history. [Lisbeth] Louderback and [Bruce] Pavlik had joined with [John] Bamberg to help determine if some of jamesii’s supremely useful genes might have benefited from the work of Indigenous farmers. If so, would these new and improved potatoes created by all the sophisticated tools of scientific breeding owe some kind of genetic debt to them? And how would people snacking on jamesii-hybrid potato chips years from now repay that debt, or even know who to thank? James Dinneen in The Counter | Read More >>
Archaeology in the Time of Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic offered humanity a portal through which we could break with the past and imagine our world anew. This article reviews how over the course of 2020, a series of intersecting crises at the nexus of racism, settler colonialism, climate change, and sexual harassment have prompted acts of resistance and care in the field of archaeology. Throughout the article, we provide concrete suggestions as to how we can continue the work of movements begun over the course of the past year to improve dynamics within our field and use the lessons from our field to improve life for all people in the world and for our planet. Jade d’Alpoim Guedes, Sara Gonzalez, and Isabel Rivera-Collazo in American Anthropologist | Read More (open access) >>
Publication Announcement: Dispersing Power
Dispersing Power: The Contentious Egalitarian Politics of the Salado Phenomenon, by Lewis Borck and Jeffery J. Clark in Power from Below in Premodern Societies: The Dynamics of Political Complexity in the Archaeological Record, edited by T. L. Thurston and Manuel Fernández-Götz. Cambridge University Press 2021. >>
Blog: Friends of Cedar Mesa’s Site Stewards and Visit with Respect Ambassadors
In an unprecedented year, Friends of Cedar Mesa’s Visit with Respect Ambassador and Stewardship & Monitoring programs are rising to meet new challenges. With the pandemic pushing more people to public lands, these programs are more important than ever, especially as we see increased visitation and additional vandalism in the Bears Ears region. Earlier this year, our staff and volunteers discovered charcoal graffiti within a site and damage to a historic inscription along Butler Wash. Our volunteers serve as eyes and ears on the ground, helping to report and reduce incidents of vandalism and inadvertent damage to sites as well as providing essential tools for visitor education. Friends of Cedar Mesa | Read More >>
Blog: On Archaeology
Truthfully, this is the second draft of my anthropology origin story and, I believe, a more honest narrative. When I was first invited to participate in this blog series, I immediately sat down and wrote my simplified go-to script of my journey with archaeology. This story is one I have used to shield myself from confronting some of the difficulties I’ve faced while navigating this relatively small field. After reading through Abby Thomsen’s and others’ thoughtful posts, I decided to dig a bit deeper (no pun intended). Even though I am still learning about archaeology as a discipline and how it could be better for all, here are some experiences of how archaeology has shaped me into who I am today. Sara Anderson at the Preservation Archaeology blog (Archaeology Southwest) | Read More >>
Dec. 9 Webinar: Listening to Ancestors: Ground-Penetrating Radar in Residential School Landscapes
UBC’s Laboratory of Archaeology (LOA) and Musqueam Indian Band (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) co-developed a capacity in the use of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) for locating unmarked graves in 2007. This work continues today including within the landscapes of former Indian Residential Schools. Our work emerged from a long history of relationships between xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and UBC archaeologists that date back to the 1940s. Over this time, the nature of our partnership has developed as we seek to understand how to frame an equitable partnership within asymmetrical relations. In this paper we present Musqueam perspectives on this relationship and consider the scholarship on the nature of uncertainty within archaeological logic that emerges from the GPR signals of Musqueam ancestors. Simon Fraser University | More Information and Zoom Registration >>
Dec. 11 Event: Presidio Holiday Celebration (Tucson AZ)
Celebrate the winter holidays at the Presidio Museum! The museum will be open until 7 pm, and attendees arriving after 3:00 p.m. will enjoy making ornaments, playing historic games, and drinking hot chocolate among festive lights and luminarias. Tucson High School’s Mariachi Rayos del Sol will play holiday and traditional mariachi music. The Holiday Tavern will also be open selling spiked Champurrado and spiked and regular egg nog. Tastings of posole will be available, and tamale dinners will be available for sale. We’ll also have the soldado’s night musket and cannon firing. Presidio San Agustín del Tucson | Learn More >>
Dec. 15 Webinar: 5 Questions about the History of Humanity
Join us LIVE for a 25-minute Q&A with archaeologist and author David Wengrow to discuss his New York Times bestselling book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (co-authored with the late anthropologist David Graeber). Register today to learn about how assumptions about social evolution such as the development of agriculture and the origins of inequality are being challenged to reveal new possibilities for understanding human history. SAPIENS | More Information and Registration >>
Dec. 16 Webinar: Archaeology at the Haynie Site
With Jim Walker and Kellam Throgmorton. Haynie Pueblo is a located in the picturesque Mesa Verde archaeological region of southwest Colorado. The Pueblo was a Chacoan outlier occupied from around 500 to 1280 A.D. The five-acre site contains two massive, multi-storied Chacoan Great Houses as well as other masonry architecture, kivas, pithouses and dense trash middens. The Archaeological Conservancy acquired Haynie Site in 2019 with the generous support of our members and the assistance of a Colorado Historical Fund grant. Research conducted by the Crow Canyon archaeological center continues to contribute to our knowledge of the site and the people who lived there centuries ago. The Archaeological Conservancy | More Information and Zoom Registration >>
REMINDER: Dec. 16 Webinar: Apache Warriors Tell Their Side
With author-historian Lynda A. Sánchez. Sánchez review the legacy of Eve Ball (1890–1984), who interviewed dozens of Apaches and their descendants about the 19th century Apache Wars, and what it was like to work side by side with this amazing woman. Third Thursday Food for Thought (Old Pueblo Archaeology Center) | More Information and Zoom Registration >>
Dec. 20 Webinar: Monumental Avenues of the Chaco World
With Robert Weiner. Researchers have puzzled over wide roadways associated with Chaco-style Great Houses in the U.S. Southwest for over a century. Despite frequent references to roads in Chaco scholarship, there has been relatively little on-the-ground assessment of how roads were used, where they led, and, more broadly, how they were implicated in the rise and fall of ancient Four Corners society. Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society | More Information and Zoom Registration >>
Job Opportunity, Center of Southwest Studies (Durango CO)
Fort Lewis College invites applications for the Director of the Center of Southwest Studies, a teaching and research archives, library and museum, with an anticipated start date July 01, 2022 and to be determined with the candidate. The successful candidate will hold an academic Assistant/Associate Professor appointment (1-1 load) concurrent with the directorship; the appointment is expected to be a tenure-track position, with a five-year term as Director, with the possibility of a directorship reappointment upon successful review. We seek a dynamic individual who can lead the Center, building on its core values of student success, community engagement, and relationships with Indigenous communities. Fort Lewis College | Learn More >>
Video Channel Roundup
It’s that time again! Find out which webinars and videos you missed and get caught up at the YouTube channels of our partners and friends:
Amerind Foundation
Archaeology Southwest
Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society
Arizona State Museum
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Grand Canyon Trust
Grand Staircase Escalante Partners
Mesa Prieta Petroglyphs Project
Museum of Indian Arts and Cultures
Museum of Northern Arizona
Old Pueblo Archaeology Center
School for Advanced Research
The Archaeological Conservancy
See you next week! Remember to send us notice of upcoming webinars and Zoom lectures, tours and workshops, and anything else you’d like to share with the friends.