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Sep/18/2018
BLM to Host Public Meetings on Bears Ears
BLM to Host Public Meetings on Bears Ears
The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service will host three public meetings in Utah as part of the planning process for the Bears Ears National Monument. The draft management plans for the Shash Jáa and Indian Creek units and associated environme...
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Jul/24/2018
National Monuments Review a Sham?
National Monuments Review a Sham?
In a quest to shrink national monuments last year, senior Interior Department officials dismissed evidence that these public sites boosted tourism and spurred archaeological discoveries, according to documents the department released this month and retracted a day ...
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Jun/05/2018
Update on Threats to Molen Reef
Threats to Utah’s Molen Reef
In the past, Orr, Bailey, and other rock art enthusiasts have been able to persuade the BLM to defer leasing while they conduct field work to document petroglyphs, habitation sites, and geoglyphs that might be impacted by development. But in 2018, guided by the Trump ...
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Nov/26/2017
Are We About to Forget America’s Best Idea?
Are We About to Forget America's Best Idea?
Since President Trump assumed office, the government has taken what some historians are calling an “unprecedented” approach to the protection of U.S. land. This summer, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke reviewed and suggested modifying 10 national monume...
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Aug/27/2017
An Assault upon the Antiquities Act
Archaeology Southwest Stands with the Antiquities Act
Archaeology Southwest denounces today’s executive order by President Trump, which requires the Department of the Interior to review national monument designations since 1996 that are greater than 100,000 acres or determined to be lacking in a...
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Aug/06/2017
The Archaeological Backhoe Master and the Early Agricultural Period Footpri...
The Archaeological Backhoe Master and the Early Agricultural Period Footprints
Not long after Dan Arnit made the biggest archaeological find of his career, he had to go build a parking lot. The news of his discovery—3,000-year-old footprints made by a family walking through ancient fields—had ...
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Apr/16/2017
Congress Takes Aim at Bears Ears
Congress Takes Aim at Bears Ears
In January, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, called the recently designated Bears Ears National Monument in his state a “travesty.” Hatch vowed to work with President Donald Trump to reverse the December 2016 designation, a stance that many other Utah Republicans have ...
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Jan/29/2017
Oil Drilling Closes in on Chaco Canyon
Oil Drilling Closes in on Chaco Canyon
On January 25, the Bureau of Land Management leased nearly 850 acres of land for drilling in northwest New Mexico, netting close to $3 million. The agency offers leases on millions of acres of public land per year, but this latest sale was unusual. Not only was...
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Dec/11/2016
Salt Lake Tribune Takes a Stand for the Antiquities Act
Salt Lake Tribune Takes a Stand for the Antiquities Act and Our National Monuments
Rob Bishop has made it clear that he would like for the Antiquities Act of 1906 to just go away. And for all those who support the law to "die." Until one or both of those happen, though, neither the incoming preside...
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Nov/06/2016
What You Need to Know about the Dakota Access Pipeline Conflict
What You Need to Know about the Dakota Access Pipeline Conflict
In recent weeks, protests against the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline across North Dakota have escalated. Native American elders, families and children have set up tepees and tents on a campsite near the pipeline’s path in the...
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Oct/23/2016
Federal Government Announces New Review of Fracking near Chaco Canyon
Federal Government Announces New Review of Fracking near Chaco Canyon
The federal government announced Thursday that it will study the potential effects of drilling on public and tribal lands near Chaco Culture National Historical Park in the San Juan Basin, an area that is one of the state’s larg...
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Aug/21/2016
Ancient Solar Storms Offer a New Method for Calibrating Dendrochronology
Ancient Solar Storms Offer a New Method for Calibrating Dendrochronology
Archaeologists believe they have identified a new way of putting accurate dates to great events of prehistory. Rare and spectacular storms on the sun appear to have left their mark in forests and fields around the planet over t...