Southwest Archaeology Today

Southwest Archaeology Today (SAT) is a free e-mail news digest providing subscribers with information about current news and events in Southwest archaeology. Published weekly, SAT is maintained as a community networking tool for professional and avocational archaeologists in the American Southwest and Mexican Northwest. Review our submission guidelines here.

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Congressional Subcommittee Hearing Today: "Destroying Sacred Sites and Erasing Tribal Culture"

Continuing Coverage: Congressional Subcommittee Hearing Today on Desecration at Border Association on American Indian Affairs Executive Director and Attorney Shannon Keller O’Loughlin will testify to Congress Wednesday that recent U.S. government destruction of Native American sacred sites for th...

New Management Areas Protect Archaeology in Southwestern Colorado

New Management Areas Protect Archaeology in Southwestern Colorado The Bureau of Land Management Tres Rios Field Office has designated three areas of critical environmental concern in Montezuma and San Miguel counties. The new amendment to the 2015 Resource Management Plan designates the Mesa Verde ...

Final Management Plans for Reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Open Lands to Extraction

Final Management Plans for Reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Open Lands to Extraction Thursday the Trump administration announced it was opening two national monuments to development. The culturally and geologically significant Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments will ...

Remembering Raymond H. Thompson (1924–2020)

Remembering Raymond H. Thompson (1924–2020) Raymond Harris Thompson, Jr., PhD, director emeritus of the Arizona State Museum (ASM), former head of the Department of Anthropology, and professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Arizona (UA), died peacefully on January 29 in Tucson, sur...

Continuing Coverage: Chaco Buffer Zone

Continuing Coverage: Chaco Buffer Zone Months after the U.S. House passed a bill that would create a long-sought, 10-mile drilling ban on federal land around Chaco Culture National Historical Park, the Navajo Nation is demanding Congress cut the proposed protection zone in half. The Navajo Nation C...

Indigenous Art Exhibition at Yale Challenges History and Perception

Indigenous Art Exhibition at Yale Challenges History and Perception “Place, Nations, Generations, Beings,” a somber and moving display of two centuries’ worth of Native American artworks at the Yale University Art Gallery, comes with a conventional list of acknowledgments plus an unconvention...

Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Litigants File Motions for Summary Judgment

Continuing Coverage: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Litigants File Motions for Summary Judgment In a pair of federal court filings, a coalition of Native American tribes and environmental groups are asking a judge to rule that President Trump overstepped his power when he shrunk the Bears...

Commentary: Obliteration of Heritage Places Would Constitute a War Crime

Commentary: Obliteration of Heritage Places Would Constitute a War Crime A part of the Hague Convention of 1907, signed over a century ago, says that “all necessary steps must be taken” to spare “buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospit...

Congressional Spending Bill Includes Protection for Greater Chaco

Congressional Spending Bill Includes Protection for Greater Chaco The U.S. Senate has approved a $1.4 trillion spending package for the 2020 fiscal year. The White House has said that the president will sign the legislation. Importantly, the legislation includes interim protections for the landscap...

Why Protect a 10-Mile Zone around Chaco Culture National Historical Park?

Commentary: Why Protect a 10-Mile Zone around Chaco Culture National Historical Park? Recently, there has been some debate about the value of protecting a 10-mile zone around Chaco Culture National Historical Park (henceforth Chaco or Chaco Park) and two of its outlying communities. Some have sugge...

National Monument Reductions, Two Years Later

Commentary: “Relentless assault” in the Two Years Since National Monument Reductions This week marks the two-year anniversary of the Trump administration’s decision to decimate two national monuments located in Utah. With the stroke of a pen, the president removed protections on 85% of the Be...

Recognition Highlights Partnerships between Tribes and National Forests

Recognition Highlights Partnerships between Tribes and National Forests A Kaibab National Forest employee was recently recognized for his excellent communication with local tribes and development of innovative tribal partnerships related to all aspects of forest management. Mike Lyndon, who current...

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