2025
06
Mar
In Honor of Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma (1950–2025)
Dear Friends,
On Wednesday, March 5, Archaeology Southwest’s new Director of Development Dani Phelps and I made one of my favorite drives across the American Southwest—the scenic route from Tucson to Santa Fe. We headed east on Interstate 10 and crossed the San Pedro Valley in the early morni...
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2025
04
Mar
The Places That Hold Our Nation’s Stories Are Not for Sale
By John R. Welch, Paul F. Reed, and Skylar Begay
(March 4, 2025)—At Archaeology Southwest, a Tucson-based nonprofit that works across the US Southwest, we believe in the power of place. Places embody people’s stories, and the public lands carved out of Native American territories safeguard an...
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2025
27
Feb
What the General Public Needs to Know about NSF Grants
Dear Friends,
I write to you from Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, Louisiana, on my way back from the 10th Annual Repatriation Conference hosted by the American Association of Indian Affairs. Over the course of an intense three days, repatriation specialists from across the n...
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2025
27
Feb
What You Need to Know about NSF Grants
(February 27, 2025)—Grants have been in the news lately, including grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Adults reading this in the US support NSF programs every year when we pay federal taxes. Most of us have paid around 44 cents a year for NSF programs, including just over one penny...
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2025
20
Feb
Potential Impacts of Freezes and Firings at NPS
Dear Friends,
In my note here on November 7, 2024, I quoted the following passage from Rabbi Abraham Heschel:
How strange we are in the world and how presumptuous our doings. Only one response can maintain us: Gratefulness for witnessing the wonder; for the gift to our unearned right to live, t...
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2025
13
Feb
Oil & Gas Advocate Named as Director of the Bureau of Land Management
Dear Friends,
These are difficult times.
Our world is changing, and changing rapidly.
The new presidential administration is attacking the people, programs, policies, places, and values at the very core of Archaeology Southwest’s work.
The body blows are coming fast and furious, and th...
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2025
11
Feb
Emerging Attacks on Our Public Lands
Paul F. Reed, New Mexico Director and Preservation Archaeologist
(February 11, 2025)—Dramatic and harmful changes in Department of Interior management policies are beginning to emerge from the new administration. Last week, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum released Secretarial Order (SO) 3418. Th...
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2025
06
Feb
Our Public Lands Are Once Again in Jeopardy
Dear Friends,
As I said last week, one of the joys of working at Archaeology Southwest is that no one day is like another. We work on a wide range of mission-driven projects that have different timelines and cadences. We can’t control external events that have an impact on what we do, we simply...
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2025
02
Feb
What cyberSW's New NEH Award Is Making Possible
Sarah Oas, Preservation Archaeologist
Caitlynn Mayhew, cyberSW Native American Fellow
(February 3, 2025)—On January 16, 2025, we proudly announced that cyberSW had received a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for a new initiative, “Expanding cybe...
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2025
30
Jan
What Will Happen to Our Public Lands?
Dear Friends,
One of the joys of working at Archaeology Southwest is the daily surprise.
One day, Allen Denoyer will come in showing off a beautiful Acheulean hand axe he just made. The next, we’ll be learning new facts at the fourth installment of our fantastic Archaeology Café series on d...
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2025
23
Jan
AZ Gov. Pledges $7M to Aid ASM NAGPRA Compliance
Dear Friends,
Archaeology Southwest currently has two dozen full-time employees working on everything from original scientific research to Tribal collaboration, from site and landscape preservation to outreach activities, and from raising money to running the business of a complex nonprofit.
W...
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2025
21
Jan
Hands-On Archaeology: How to (Ethically) Harvest Lac
Allen Denoyer, Ancient Technologies Expert
(January 22, 2025)—What is lac, and why do we care how it is harvested?
If you haven’t yet read Marilen Pool’s recent post on lac, go do that now. Marilen explains what it is and how people have used it through time. Some years ago, Marilen attend...
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