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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BLM Temporarily Defers Leases in Chaco Buffer Zone

BLM Temporarily Defers Leases in Chaco Buffer Zone The U.S. Bureau of Land Management reversed course Friday, saying certain land near Chaco Culture National Historical Park would no longer be offered at an oil and gas lease sale in March. Environmental advocates, tribal groups and Democratic lawma...

Parcels within 10-Mile Buffer Zone around Chaco to Go up for Leasing

Parcels within 10-Mile Buffer Zone around Chaco to Go up for Leasing A high point on the Pueblo Alto Trail at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a climb of more than 300 feet, offers a view of landscape scattered with purple-brown brush and carved with ancestral Puebloan ruins. It is here wher...

Rep. Grijalva Calls for Investigation of Monument Downsizings

Rep. Grijalva Calls for Investigation of Monument Downsizings "I firmly believe that the shrinkage was in response to the coal industry and uranium mining industry — but I stand to be proven wrong," Grijalva said. "That's why we have oversight. That's why we have those investigations." Grijalva s...

Museum of Northern Arizona and the Glen Canyon Dam Project Today

Museum of Northern Arizona and the Glen Canyon Dam Project Today Archaeology is still an important research domain at the museum. In 2014, MNA began a cooperative agreement with Glen Canyon National Recreation area to monitor previously-recorded archaeological sites. These are sites known from the ...

Shutdown Leads to Closure of Mesa Verde National Park

Shutdown Leads to Closure of Mesa Verde National Park An unpaid park ranger posted at the front entrance to Mesa Verde National Park has been turning away visitors for about two weeks because the partial federal government shutdown has parked the snowplows. There are no paid plow operators in the p...

Developing a Land Management Plan for Bears Ears

Developing a Land Management Plan for Bears Ears The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition intends to proceed with the development of a comprehensive land management plan for the 1.9 million-acre landscape that was incorporated into the Coalition’s original proposal to the Obama administration. The C...

2018’s Top Stories about National Parks

2018’s Top Stories about National Parks From volcanic fireworks and geothermal explosions to political upheaval, the past year frequently saw national parks in the forefront of news. Here's a look back at some of the top stories of 2018 from the National Park System and National Park Service. htt...

Their Lands: Native Americans on Monument Reduction

Their Lands: Native Americans on Monument Reduction Every few months for much of his life, the 66-year-old Navajo spiritual leader has trekked from his nearby home to this slice of land in southeastern Utah, not far from the base of the Bears Ears buttes, to gather sage. Throughout the year, he use...

Resilient Farmers of the Phoenix Basin

Resilient Farmers of the Phoenix Basin From approximately A.D. 450-1400, a Native American group known today as the Hohokam overcame a harsh desert environment along with periodic droughts and floods to settle and farm much of modern Arizona. They managed this feat by collectively maintaining an ex...

Do Better by Chaco

Commentary: Do Better by Chaco However, outside the pueblos, little information is available about the Pueblos’ ties to the Greater Chaco Region that would enable the BLM to meet its mandated duties. Pueblo ethnographic information is scarce or entirely absent from the archaeological and academic...

Thank You for Commenting

Unprecedented Number of Comments Submitted on Behalf of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Organizations in Utah announced Tuesday that Americans across the country submitted more than 500,000 comments on the future of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. This outsized...

Thought-Provoking Essay on Archaeological Headlines

Commentary: Words Matter These myths of discovery and exploration are particularly damaging because they paint a picture where Indigenous groups are not able caretakers of their own histories and landscapes. Headlines that promote this contribute to the erasure of modern Indigenous connections to l...

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