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Jun/12/2016
Will a Bears Ears Monument Declaration Lead to Armed Rebellion?
Will a Bears Ears Monument Declaration Lead to Armed Rebellion?
For centuries, humans have used the red sandstone canyons here as a way to mark their existence. First came archaic hunter-gatherers who worked in Glen Canyon Linear, a crude geometrical style dating back more than 3,500 years. Then ab...
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Apr/10/2016
A View of American Politics from the Perspective of Southwestern Archaeolog...
A View of American Politics from the Perspective of Southwestern Archaeology
Inequality. Economic recession. Wage stagnation. These are the buzzwords of the populist uprisings on both the left and the right during this 2016 election season. Although they’re running strikingly different campaigns, ...
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Feb/21/2016
25 Tribal Nations Unite to Support a Bears Ears National Monument
25 Tribal Nations Unite to Support a Bears Ears National Monument
Native peoples in the Southwest take the long view. They have lived in the redrock canyons of the Colorado Plateau for 12,000 years and have shown astonishing resilience in the face of devastating change in the last 500 years. Now, th...
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Jan/10/2016
Expiration of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Was Also an Assault on P...
Expiration of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Was Also an Assault on Public Lands
When armed men shut down the 107-year-old Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in the sagebrush steppes of the northern Great Basin on Saturday, their anti-government anger put federal management of public lands in...
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Oct/11/2015
Archaeology Southwest President Bill Doelle Presented with the Raymond H. T...
An Informed Community Is a Strong Community—and Your Support Will Make It Stronger
Did you realize that, by reading Southwest Archaeology Today each week, you are a member of a growing community of readers? Nearly 3,000 strong, our community values the places of the past, and we stay informed beca...
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Sep/06/2015
Did Ancient Humans Shape Our Climate?
Did Ancient Humans Shape Our Climate?
We all know that humans are having a massive impact on the planet. Our effects include altering the Earth’s rotation by damming large amounts of surface water; changing the composition of the atmosphere by punching a hole in the ozone layer and adding vast a...
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Aug/09/2015
Cache of Ancient Tobacco Quids Identified in Cave Deposit
Cache of Ancient Tobacco Quids Identified in Cave Deposit
Dozens of small, fiber-wrapped bundles discovered in a cave in Arizona have been found to contain wild tobacco, the first scientific evidence suggesting that Ancestral Puebloans of the prehistoric Southwest chewed tobacco for personal use, ar...
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Dec/07/2014
House Republicans Attempt End-Run Around Environmental and Archaeological ...
House Republicans Attempt End-Run Around Environmental and Archaeological Law for Mining at Apache Leap
When Terry Rambler, the chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, woke up Wednesday in Washington, D.C., it was to learn that Congress was deciding to give away a large part of his ancestral homela...
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Jul/21/2013
Sacred Object Sold at Paris Auction Returned to Hopi Tribe
Sacred Object Sold at Paris Auction Returned to Hopi Tribe
One of the several dozen sacred items sold at auction in Paris last spring has been returned to the Hopi people. The tribe was vehemently opposed to the sale. In April when lawyer Pierre Servan-Schreibercouldn’t convince a French judge ...
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Apr/14/2013
Paris Auction House Sells Contested Objects Sacred to Hopi Tribe
Paris Auction House Sells Contested Objects Sacred to Hopi Tribe
A contested auction of sacred Hopi Indian artifacts went forward on Friday in Paris and generated more than $1 million in sales, despite the presence of protesters inside and outside the auction house who urged patrons not to take part...
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May/15/2011
Strange Twist in the Now Discredited Clovis Comet Hypothesis
Strange Twist in the Story of the Now Discredited Clovis Comet Hypothesis
A new look at the comet claim suggests all of these phenomena may be in play, apparently creating a peculiar bond of desperation as the theory came under increasing attack. Indeed, the team’s established scientists are so we...
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Apr/04/2011
Did Ancient Southwestern Peoples Trade Turquoise for Chocolate?
Like Turquoise for Chocolate?
Talk about a sweet deal—prehistoric peoples of Mesoamerica may have traded chocolate for gems from the U.S. Southwest, a new study suggests. Traces of a chemical found in cacao—the main ingredient in chocolate—were found in several drinking vessels from variou...