Dear Friends,
Some folks hate to fly on airplanes. I enjoy it. In spite of all the hassle, I can sit back and marvel at the fact that humans have created machines that move at 550 miles per hour. I always get a window seat so I can watch the world go by. I sit quietly. I think. I read, listen to music, or (very occasionally) watch a trashy movie without interruption.
I write to you while flying to Tampa, Florida, to celebrate our oldest son Ben’s graduation from Eckerd College in nearby St. Petersburg. Given that auspicious event, I’ve been reflecting on the virtues of a quality liberal arts education, the merits of which have been under attack for many years now. I recognize that college is not for everyone, and that the liberal arts are certainly not for everyone. But my wife Carmen and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Ben grow through the immersive odyssey that is a four-year residential college.
I’m still a proud, unabashed product of the liberal arts tradition. I graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa, and I grew up on the University of Chicago campus, where my mom worked in admissions and advising for four decades before she retired as Dean of Students in 2002. (From the small world department, Mom also served as academic advisor to Archaeology Southwest’s Vice-President of Communications and PAT editor Kate Sarther!)
I’m a lifelong learner and love being surrounded by the critical thinkers, scholars, and great communicators we have at Archaeology Southwest, all of whom pursue great ideas and engage in thoughtful, values-driven scholarship and advocacy.
I’ll end this brief note with an entreaty to you, dear reader: What are the best books you’ve ever read, and why? What did you learn from them? How might those tomes inform the values-driven Preservation Archaeology we practice? Hit “reply” and let us know, and we’ll get some discussion going via our blog soon.
Until next time, keep reading, keep writing, and keep thinking,
Steve Nash
President & CEO, Archaeology Southwest
Banner image: Chi’ chil Bildagoteel (Oak Flat) on May 8, 2025. John R. Welch
Bill Lipe’s Obituary
William David Lipe died peacefully Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Moscow, with loving family by his side. Bill was a valued son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle, friend and mentor; he is greatly missed. … Bill graduated with honors from Bristow High in 1953 with a four-year scholarship to University of Tulsa, won during a radio knowledge bowl contest which dubbed him “Grand Knowledge Champion of the Southwest.” Moscow-Pullman Daily News | Read more »
Continuing Coverage: Protecting Oak Flat
The copper mine would be the largest in North America, producing up to a quarter of U.S. copper demand, the company projects. But it also would destroy most of Oak Flat, leaving behind a sinkhole nearly 2 miles wide and as deep as the Eiffel Tower.
Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit that aims to protect sacred lands including Oak Flat, won a reprieve on May 9, when U.S. District Judge Steven Logan granted an injunction blocking the land swap while the Supreme Court considers its case. The high court is expected to decide whether to take it by early July.
“The federal government and Resolution Copper have put Oak Flat on death row—they are racing to destroy our spiritual lifeblood and erase our religious traditions forever,” Wendsler Nosie Sr., founder of Apache Stronghold, said in a statement. “We are grateful the judge stopped this land grab in its tracks so that the Supreme Court has time to protect Oak Flat from destruction.” Melissa Bailey for CBS News | Read more »
Continuing Coverage and Commentary: Extreme Shake-Up at NSF
The National Science Foundation (NSF), already battered by White House directives and staff reductions, is plunging into deeper turmoil. According to sources who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, staff were told today that the agency’s 37 divisions—across all eight NSF directorates—are being abolished and the number of programs within those divisions will be drastically reduced. The current directors and deputy directors will lose their titles and might be reassigned to other positions at the agency or elsewhere in the federal government. Jeffrey Mervis for Science | Read more »
This is not reform. It is a dismantling.
The restructuring is widely seen as a response to political pressure from the executive branch, reflecting a broader effort to align federal science funding with emerging ideological priorities. … The economic consequences of restricting scientific inquiry on this scale could be far-reaching. John Drake in Forbes | Read more »
Today, I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. … Perseverance has its limits. The erosion of these institutions’ integrity—and the growing realization that it is impossible to fulfill their missions in good faith—has made the cost of continuing untenable. This is why I must step away from my work with two federal institutions I care deeply about. Alondra Nelson in Time | Read more »
Continuing Coverage and Commentary: “Our Public Lands Must Not Be Sold”
Public lands are one of our country’s great equalizers. It doesn’t matter how much money you have—a billionaire and a bus driver both get the same access to our parks, deserts, rivers and forests. Each one of us owns these lands together. They are literally America’s common ground.
Like so many Americans, I’ve built a life around public lands—exploring them, defending them and working to ensure they remain open to all. From my early days in Montana to leading the Bureau of Land Management and now as president of The Wilderness Society, I’ve seen what these places mean to people. And I’ve never seen a threat to them as serious and shocking as the one we face right now. Tracy Stone-Manning, former BLM Director, in High Country News | Read more »
Podcast: The Worst Public Lands Bill in History?
Host Adam Bronstein welcomes Wes Seiler to the program to discuss the ongoing legislative challenges surrounding public lands in D.C. We discuss the implications of potential land sell-offs, which could total more than a half million acres in Utah and Nevada, the motives behind political actions by figures like Ryan Zinke, and the efficiency of public land management agencies. Our Public Lands | Listen now »
Nonhuman Primate News
Chimpanzees in Uganda have been observed using medicinal plants—in multiple ways—to treat open wounds and other injuries. University of Oxford scientists, working with a local team in the Budongo Forest, filmed and recorded incidents of the animals using plants for first aid, both on themselves and occasionally on each other. Their research builds on the discovery last year that chimps seek out and eat certain plants to self-medicate. …
They also found records of chimpanzees tending to the wounds of other animals they weren’t related to. This is particularly exciting, explained Dr Freymann, “because it adds to the evidence that wild chimpanzees have the capacity for empathy”. Victoria Gill for BBC News | Read more »
New in Avocado History…
Avocados are true superfoods: dense, buttery scoops of vitamins, fat and fiber, all in a hand-size package.
We worked for a long time to make them this way. According to a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, people in what we today call Honduras made avocados a part of their diets at least 10,000 years ago and purposefully improved them starting more than 7,500 years ago—first by managing wild trees, and then by selectively planting new ones, to encourage thicker rinds and larger fruit.
This means fruit domestication at this site began thousands of years before the arrival of more commonly studied plants like maize. Cara Giaimo for the New York Times | Read more »
May Live Lectures (Santa Fe NM)
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 »
TODAY, May 15 Online Event: Domestication: The Beginning of the End of Community Relationships
With A-dae Romero-Briones. The concept of domestication has fascinated and defined how humans view history. Domestication itself is a descriptor of a relationship between humans, plants, and animals. Pueblo world views also define the relationships between humans, plants, and the natural world in very specific ways that are often in opposition to western concepts of domestication. Included in the differences are the idea of collective consciousness and reflection that can be found in Pueblo communities, present and past. This lecture focuses on domestication, Pueblo understandings of relationships with the natural world, and how society organizes itself around the definitions of domestication. Crow Canyon Archaeological Center | Learn more and register (free) »
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) »
REMINDER: 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 »
REMINDER: 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 »
REMINDER: 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) »
May 28 In-Person Event (Grand Junction CO): What’s New with the Oldest Archaeology in the Americas?
With John Seebach. Dr. Seebach will discuss the Ice Age archaeology of the Paleoindian era, focusing on the White Sands footprint sites, Folsom Point sites of Middle Park, Colorado, and Paleoindian sites of the Great Basin. The event is free and open to the public; donations will be accepted. 6:30, Meet and Greet, 7:00 presentation. Redlands UMC, 527 Village Way. Colorado Archaeological Society, Grand Junction Chapter | Learn more »
May 30 Online Event: Great Houses for Whom?
With Robert S. Weiner. What were Great Houses, how were they used, and what do they tell us about the Indigenous history of the Four Corners from 800-1200 CE? In this talk Dr. Robert Weiner will offer a new interpretation of Great Houses as temples, drawing on diverse lines of evidence of cognitive science, cross-cultural comparison, and oral traditions of Diné and Pueblo people. Dr. Weiner is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth College, where he is also a Lecturer in the Department of Religion. 8:00 p.m. EDT. Aztlander Magazine of the Americas | Zoom link »
June 14 In-Person Flintknapping Workshop (Tucson AZ)
With Sam Greenleaf. Participants will learn how to make arrowheads, spear points, and other flaked stone artifacts from obsidian and other stone like ancient peoples did. The class is designed to foster understanding of how early peoples made essential tools, not to make artwork for sale. 9:00 a.m. to noon, 2201 W. 44th St. Reservation and $40 payment (which includes all materials and equipment) required by 5:00 p.m. Thursday June 12: 520-798-1201 or info@oldpueblo.org. Old Pueblo Archaeology Center | Learn more »
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!