Southwestern Archaeology, Inc. (SWA) Southwestern Archaeology Special Interest Group (SASIG) "Got CALICHE?" Newsletter Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of the Greater Southwest! Monday January 22, 2001 ***************************************** TEXAS http://www.austin360.com/statesman/editions/today/metro_state_9.html American Indian students and tribal leaders from around the country rallied at the Capitol Saturday afternoon to call for laws to protect unmarked graves and burial grounds. Native American leaders claim that in Texas, state law does little to protect sacred burial grounds from grave looters. They are pushing for state legislation that would make it illegal to remove anything from an unmarked grave and would require anyone who discovers a grave site to notify the county sheriff and state archaeologist. http://amarillonet.com/stories/012101/boo_tripp.shtml As late as 1967, some historians were still accepting stories in 'The Quirt and the Spur' as fact. More than any other single work, it fueled the perception of West Texas as a 'wild and wooly' frontier. COLORADO http://www.denverpost.com/news/sci.htm Feb 1 at 7pm: Payson Sheets, anthropology professor at UC Boulder, will present a lecture titled "Elite-Commoner Interaction Among the Southern Maya." The free talk will be at the CU Museum of Natural History; information 303.492.3396. http://www.durangoherald.com/1news3852.htm The Center of Southwest Studies has more than 2,000 ancestral Puebloan ceramic vessels, 300 textiles, 140 items of Southwestern basketry, various military objects from the old Fort Lewis and antique photographic equipment. Most of the center's collections were donated from nearly 700 sources. http://www.durangoherald.com/1news3852.htm#Center The center quickly amassed a collection of prehistoric and historic artifacts, thousands of volume on Southwest history and culture, rare Navajo weavings, thousands of maps and tens of thousands of photographs. The new center will play in the intellectual life of Durango and as a source of information about our region for tourists and visitors. http://www.durangoherald.com/1news3852.htm#Collection The Durango Collection is a $2.5 million collection of more than 150 textiles from throughout the Americas that spans eight centuries. http://www.durangoherald.com/1news3852.htm#New home As the center opens, gallery owners have loaned artifacts. Ancestral Puebloan pottery has been donated. Decorative folk-art masks have arrived. $211,000 for the center was pledged, which includes, money, art, photographs and historic textiles. UTAH http://www.sltrib.com/01212001/commenta/64241.htm This is the relevant text of the summary of a forensic study on bones taken from a Mountain Meadows massacre grave. http://www.sltrib.com:80/01212001/nation_w/64404.htm A new forensic study lends credence to Paiute Indian claims that the tribe did not participate in the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857 to the extent history has recorded. Utah American Indian officials say they are pleased with implications of the new evidence for the Paiute Tribe. Prepared by researchers at the University of Utah Department of Anthropology, the 200-page skeletal-trauma analysis was delivered in July to Brigham Young University's Office of Public Archaeology for inclusion in a final report to state history officials. The report represents the first scientific analysis of a crime of civil terrorism that has few parallels in modern American history. http://www.sltrib.com/01212001/utah/utah.htm Few people in Utah Territory were brave enough to ask hard questions about the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, but George Hicks was one. Hicks' raw candor and questioning eventually got him excommunicated, but he also is remembered as one of Utah's greatest folksingers. His song, "Once I Lived in Cottonwood," is a classic satire of the hardships of pioneering in the harsh "Dixie" landscape, where "the red hills of November/Looked the same in May." NEVADA/ARIZONA http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0121hoover21.html FHWA has picked a site for a bridge to lift traffic from the Hoover Dam. A $200 million arch, a quarter-mile downstream from the dam, would connect Nevada and Arizona. Construction could begin in 2002 and take five years. Challenges are expected on legal, environmental, emotional and aesthetic grounds. Richard Arnold, director of the Indian Center in Las Vegas, compares building on Sugarloaf Mountain to bulldozing a church or religious shrine. ARIZONA http://www0.mercurycenter.com:80/premium/nation/docs/eagles21.htm A proposal to allow the Hopi to gather hatchling golden eagles from a national monument in Arizona for an ancient sacrificial ritual, had been on hold for months while lawyers weighed laws protecting Indian religious freedoms and those protecting parks and birds of prey. The final draft was submitted last Thursday and was to be published in the Federal Register this week, leading to 60 days public comment. Opponents said they were prepared to challenge it, if it survived the transition to the new administration. Some say any change in use of national parks should come through Congress, not agencies. NEW MEXICO http://www.abqjournal.com/news/231225news01-21-01.htm The Zuni do not kill eagles because Zuni religious tradition has no use for eagle bones. Zuni is the only tribe to address its feather-supply problem by constructing an aviary and keeping its own birds. The practice has been allowed since 1994. CROUCHING DIGGER, HIDDEN PANTHER http://www.austin360.com/statesman/editions/today/news_30.html Archaeologists on Monday are to start extracting the sediment shrouding the Hunley. A three-month excavation is planned to remove densely packed sand and silt from a hole at the stern of the submarine. Cameras in the lab will broadcast what's happening, and for $5 a day, people can sit on bleachers and watch the recovery. http://www.ohio.com:80/bj/news/ohio/docs/025611.htm Lepper believes that the Europeans misunderstood when they asked resident American Indians about the 'underwater panther' earthwork. Lepper arrived at this conclusion two years ago while attempting to determine the mound's age. Charcoal suggests a construction date of about 1200, making it a contemporary of the Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio's only other confirmed effigy mound. LIGHT MY FIRE http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/16/science/16FIRE.html A trickster brought fire to people and changed their lives. Fire gave rise to cooking and provided protection against predators and cold. By lighting the night, fire paved the way for civilization. While few anthropologists argue with that notion, they are engaged in a continuing debate over when ancestral humans gained control of fire and what that says about the way they lived and perhaps even evolved. ***************************************** Contact the Editor @ or 602.882.8025 Send books, letter mail, and other media to: Southwestern Archaeology, Inc. 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