Dear Friends,
The assault on all we hold near and dear continues, led by an unelected shadow government hired by the very people who howled about the presence of a sinister and so-called “deep state.” The irony of this situation would be delicious if their actions weren’t so short-sighted, damaging, and poisonous.
This is generation-length damage being done.
In the last three days, I’ve spoken with colleagues from UCLA, UPenn, and the UA in Tucson, all of whom had a total of more than $2 million in legal, peer-reviewed, contracted and authorized grants from the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) stolen from them, just like our $350,000 cyberSW grant was stolen from us.
I use the word “stolen” deliberately but not lightly. I believe it is the only appropriate verb that can be used to describe the action. The grants were awarded through standard, transparent, highly competitive, and time-honored processes. The grants were terminated in an arbitrary and capricious manner that did not adhere to the federal government’s own published policies and procedures for grant termination. What other word describes that situation?
And the hits keep coming. In the last week:
A US House of Representatives committee voted (near midnight!) to sell off public lands in Utah and Nevada (see below).
The National Science Foundation “terminated” more than 1,000 federal grants. They have frozen all current grant programs, so we can no longer apply for funding for our cyberSW research program. They are trying to reduce the grant overhead rate to a flat 15%, ignoring how important such funds are to the administration of nonprofits, universities, and other entities, which often need overhead rates of 30% or more. And they are cutting staff at NSF, practically guaranteeing that yesterday’s normal will never be regained, even as plaintiffs make progress in their class action lawsuits against the executive orders (as happened this week with the Institute for Museum and Library Services).
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) just “terminated” hundreds of grants, including one to The Loft Cinema here in Tucson, where we hosted our beloved Archaeology Café series for many years. In response to these cuts, the satirical online magazine The Onion just announced that the NEA laid off 30,000 muses! Unfortunately, such satire no longer seems farcical. The truth is now stranger than fiction.
Rest assured, we at Archaeology Southwest have been fighting these efforts and will continue to fight for all that we believe in. To name just a few of our recent activities:
Sky Begay, our Director of Tribal Collaboration, recently attended the Conservation Lands Foundation’s (CLF) advocacy days for the protection of public lands in Washington, D.C. In a heartwarming aside, a CLF colleague wrote to me today to say,
“I just wanted to thank you [Steve] for letting [Sky] leave his day-to-day job and join this trip. Sky was an impressive communicator and advocate for public lands. I could literally see how the representatives we talked with perked up and started actively listening when they heard Sky’s first-hand experiences and stories from the ground. You’re lucky to have him on staff!”
Indeed we are!
Last week, VP of Research Jeff Clark and cyberSW manager Josh Watts formally appealed, in writing, NEH’s “termination” (i.e., theft) of our $350,000 NEH grant. I want to make a special shout-out to Archaeology Southwest member Bill Reynolds for his expertise and assistance in that important effort.
Director of Development Dani Phelps is in Washington, D.C., this week, participating the Land Trust Alliance Advocacy Days and meeting with members of the Arizona congressional delegation, our partners at CLF, and other entities.
On Wednesday, May 7, VP of Preservation and Collaboration John Welch was in Phoenix to attend a District Court hearing on the potential destruction of the sacred Oak Flat east of Phoenix (see below). John is also keeping us in the fight over the SunZia transmission line through the San Pedro River Valley; that fight is still winding its way through the courts even though the transmission line is nearly complete.
Fasten your seat belts, folks—this ride is going to get bumpy(-er). But there’s no other group I’d rather be leading at this moment than the passionate, committed, and effective Archaeology Southwest team.
Until next week,
Steve Nash
President & CEO, Archaeology Southwest
Banner image: Ironwood National Forest, Bob Wick
House Committee Votes to Sell Off Public Lands
Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources moved to dispose of thousands of acres of federal land in Nevada and Utah late Tuesday, as part of a sweeping budget bill to boost energy and mineral extraction, while dismantling public land protections.
At around 11 p.m., 13 hours into a markup hearing, Reps. Mark Amodei (R-Nevada) and Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) introduced a 33-page amendment to sell off thousands acres of federal public lands in their states, which they argued is necessary for housing and other economic development. …
The committee advanced the budget draft by a 26-17 vote. It now heads to the full House for consideration. Chase Huntley, vice president of federal policy at The Wilderness Society, called the vote “a very dark night for the American people.” Roque Planas and Chris D’Angelo at Public Domain | Read more »
[Deputy Director Aaron Weiss:] “Privatizing public lands is a drastic step that should be made with public input and congressional debate—not during a midnight vote on a budget bill. Once these lands are gone, they’re gone forever—that means no more hiking, no more biking, no more grazing, no more habitat for wildlife. Now it’s up to the full House and Senate to listen to their constituents and reject this sell-off once it’s seen in the harsh light of day.” Center for Western Priorities | Read more »
Continuing Coverage: Overview of Administration’s Push to Privatize Public Lands
The Republican campaign to undermine land management agencies and wrest control of public lands from the federal government is nothing new, dating back to the Sagebrush Rebellion movement of the 1970s and ’80s, when support for privatizing or transferring federal lands to state control exploded across the West. But the speed and scope of the current attack, along with its disregard for the public’s support for safeguarding public lands, makes it more worrisome than previous iterations, several public land advocates and legal experts told Grist. Chris D’Angelo in Grist | Read more »
Essay on Staying Grounded Amid Public Lands Purge
There is no way for me to avoid this news because it affects everything I write about and every inch of land I surround myself with. Escaping into nature, even out my front door, puts me on the front lines of a place the energy vampires are fiending for. It makes me feel physically ill often. The news is f—-d up, but living in this state is unsustainable. Can you relate?
To deal, I am building my life support tool kit. Right now, it looks like this. Morgan Sjogren at Wild Words | Read more »
Continuing Coverage: Oak Flat Litigation
Grassroots group Apache Stronghold asked the U.S. District Court in Phoenix on May 7 to temporarily block the Trump administration from moving ahead with plans that would help clear the way for Resolution Copper to take ownership of Oak Flat and begin extracting copper a site considered sacred to Apache and other Native peoples.
Attorneys for the group argued in the hearing that if the government issues a final environmental impact statement and the land exchange is finalized before the U.S. Supreme Court decides if it will hear the case this fall, it would be too late to reverse and return the land to the U.S. Forest Service. Debra Utacia Krol for the Arizona Republic | Read more »
The Art and Science of Balancing Access and Protection
After all, making the natural world accessible to more people can lead to more people caring about that world, and should — at least in theory — help conservation efforts. Instead, today’s recreation researchers said, they first focus on getting visitors to change their behavior to have less impact on the landscape. When behavioral shifts aren’t enough, though, they still have to figure out which crowd-control strategy serves the most visitors the most fairly, while minimizing their environmental consequences.
In recent years, crowd control has become more of a science than an art, as a new generation of researchers has nudged the field toward more evidence-based approaches. Through survey studies, structured interviews, and data from remote sensing technology like drones, a growing body of research is analyzing policy impacts on both ecosystems and visitors, digging into the effectiveness of less-restrictive rules, and revealing how to enact restrictions in the fairest way possible. Sarah Scoles for Undark | Read more »
On Pseudo-Archaeology and Authentic Skepticism
In order to extend the “experts are lying to you” view to archaeologists, you have to have a very cynical view of institutions indeed. That’s where a lot of people have ended up, though. Scientists are not to be trusted, and the very word “expert” confers not an extraordinary degree of knowledge but arrogance and elitism.
Part of the problem here is that it is rational to mistrust large institutions, and experts can be wrong. The fact that someone has a PhD doesn’t necessarily mean they know what they’re talking about, and there have been lots of instances where a theory that turned out to be true was not accepted by the mainstream of an academic community at first. … But scientists eventually do tend to reach a consensus. Nathan J. Robinson in Current Affairs | Read more »
America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places for 2025: List Includes May Hicks Curtis House in Flagstaff and Phoenix’s Mystery Castle
Now in its 38th year, the National Trust’s annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places has proven to be a highly effective tool for shining a light on the threats facing our nation’s greatest treasures. Due to the efforts of the National Trust and its passionate supporters, the ongoing initiative has galvanized public support behind more than 350 sites to date with only a handful lost.
The 11 Most Endangered program uplifts and catalyzes community-led preservation work through a high-impact public awareness campaign resulting in increased visibility, public attention, and new resources to save and activate historic places for the public good.
This year’s list exemplifies how preservation is about creating something new, spotlighting efforts to repurpose historic buildings and activate them to serve their communities in new ways. The collection of places on this list also helps illustrate how resilience and recovery are intertwined with preservation and emphasizes the economic benefits that come with revitalization. National Trust for Historic Preservation | Read more »
May Live Lectures (Santa Fe NM)
May 12, Jason Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo), Tewa and the Arts; May 19, Thomas E. Chavez, American Revolutionary Diplomacy; May 26, Deborah C. Slaney, Leekyuse: Zuni Family of Fetish Carvers. 6:00 p.m., Hotel Santa Fe. $20 at the door. Southwest Seminars | Learn more »
May 14 In-Person Event (Queen Creek AZ): Great Bend of the Gila
With Aaron Wright. Wright will speak on this enduring yet fragile ancient, historical, and contemporary crossroads. 6:30 p.m., San Tan Historical Museum, 20435 S. Old Ellsworth Rd. Free and open to the public. San Tan Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society
May 14 In-Person (Durango CO) and Online Event: Turquoise Trade in the Chacoan World and Beyond
With Sharon Hull. The procurement and exchange of turquoise was an important part of pre-Columbian American Southwest and Mesoamerican cultures. A secondary ion mass spectrometer technique that measures isotope ratios of hydrogen and copper was used on 59 turquoise artifacts from Pueblo Bonito, Marcia’s Rincon, Aztec, and Salmon Ruins to “fingerprint” the geological turquoise sources. Results indicate multiple long-distance exchange networks into Chaco Canyon, different procurement strategies between the great house Pueblo Bonito and Marcia’s Rincon, a community of agriculturalist and artisans, and some similar patterns with Aztec and Salmon Ruins. Dr. Hull, now an interpretive ranger at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, wrote her University of Manitoba Department of Anthropology PhD thesis on “Turquoise Trade and Procurement in the Chacoan World.” 7:00 p.m. MDT, Center of Southwest Studies Lyceum at Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Dr. San Juan Basin Archaeological Society | Link to join Zoom »
REMINDER: May 15 Online Event: Archaeological Frauds and Myths
With Kenneth Feder. Hundreds of years ago did giant humans live near Syracuse, New York, or did Lost Tribes of Israel etch the Ten Commandments in Hebrew on a boulder southwest of Albuquerque, or did Native Americans in Utah paint a pterodactyl and extraterrestrial aliens on rocks? Feder will examine claims about these and other archaeological “mysteries.” Third Thursday Food for Thought series (Old Pueblo Archaeology Center) | Learn more and register (free) »
May 20 In-Person Event (Tucson AZ): A Hopi Potter Extraordinaire: Nampeyo and Her Legacy
With Diane Dittemore. The ASM associate curator of ethnology, will share highlights of ASM’s Hopi pottery by Nampeyo (~1858–1942) and her many descendants. Nampeyo was a stellar pottery maker, known for her interpretations of ancient Hopi pottery styles. She was the first Southwestern Native potter to become known to the American public through traders promoting her wares, her travels across the country and through summer residencies demonstrating at the Grand Canyon. Nampeyo left a legacy that dozens of her descendants have drawn upon in their own works. Dittemore has just updated the ASM web exhibit, “A Nampeyo Showcase,” that was first launched in 2000. 6:00 p.m. Whiskey del Bac, 2106 N. Forbes. Free. Arizona State Museum | Learn more »
May 22 In-Person Event (Sedona AZ): Slips and Lasers: Exploring New Dimensions of Salado Polychrome Ceramic Production in the Phoenix Basin
With Caitlin A. Wichlacz. Through discussions of recent chemical analyses of the body clays and white slips used to make this ware, this presentation will explore the possibility that Salado polychrome pottery may reflect multiple networks of interaction, both within the Phoenix Basin and tying its communities to the broader regional Salado phenomenon. 3:30 p.m., Sedona Public Library, 3250 White Bear Rd. Verde Valley Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society | Chapter website »
May 22 Online Event: Staking Futures Together: Mediating Conflict through Games in Ancient North America
With Gabriel Yanicki. Across the continent, ubiquitous historic accounts describe gambling games as preferentially an intertribal activity, and further, to have a frequent synonymy with war. Gambling was a valorized pathway to prestige, both through the reputational benefit accrued by redistributing material winnings and through the direct wagering of earned social rank. Conversely, gambling could also have disastrous costs, leading to impoverishment, disgrace, enslavement, and even death. Ideal opponents for the highest-stakes games were thus found not among relatives sharing cooperative goals but among distant social groups among whom there also existed the potential for violent conflict. Gaming, then, represents a choice—not to fight, but to channel uncertain social prospects and tensions into more peaceable means. Crow Canyon Archaeological Center | Learn more and register (free) »
Save the Dates: Oct. 17–18 24th Biennial Jornada Mogollon Conference
Proposals for individual papers can be on any history, culture, or archaeology topic in the Jornada Mogollon region (including Casas Grandes). Papers accepted for presentation are eligible for publication in the conference proceedings volume. To submit your proposal please fill out the Abstract Submission Form found here and email to Ribas-NormandSG@elpasotexas.gov. Deadline to submit abstract is July 11, 2025. El Paso Museum of Archaeology | Learn more (scroll down) »
Remember to send us notice of upcoming events and webinars, tours and workshops, and anything else you’d like to share with the Friends. Thanks!