Southwestern Archaeology, Inc. (SWA) " Got CALICHE ? " Newsletter Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of the Greater Southwest! Monday January 06, 2003 ***************************************** TEXAS http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=180&xlc=912333 The Comanches, who had been at war with settlers, sought a peace council in 1840. But when they arrived at the plaza without the captive Anglo women and children the Texans expected, they were told they'd be held prisoner until their captives were produced. In the ensuing Council House Fight, 35 Comanches and seven Texans died. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6590734&BRD=1426&PAG=461&dept_id=186027&rfi=6 Shirley Schell is an authority on Plano's history. Just recently, she has been working to obtain a historical marker for Plano's Sawyer-Risher stagecoach and mail route. http://www.dallasnews.com/localnews/stories/010503dnmetcourthouse.bd697.html The Texas Historical Commission is paying $2.7 million of the $3.7 million restoration project, which will take a year to complete. Work is expected to begin later this month. The Denton County courthouse lawn will be fenced off for safety, three of the four entry doors will be closed to the public, and many of the rooms will be sealed while construction workers plaster, paint and polish the building to bring it back to its original 1896 glory. http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/010303/new_landmark.shtml Goodlett is hosting one event after another at the old gym. Some of Goodlett's empty houses have been turned into tourist cabins. The Depression-era gym, built from 1935 to 1937 by the Works Progress Administration, was in desperate need. NEW MEXICO http://www.alamogordonews.com/Stories/0,1413,160%257E9602%257E1091233,00.html The Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care took over the care of 266 chimpanzees and 61 monkeys from the Alamogordo Coulston Foundation facilities. The primates range in age from 2 to 40 years old. Among the chimpanzees being permanently cared for by the center are 16 of the U.S. Air Force chimpanzees who are survivors or descendants of chimpanzees used in the U.S. space program. The Alamogordo facility now employs about 30 caretakers for the chimpanzees, all local people. ARIZONA http://yumasun.com/artman/publish/articles/story_3289.shtml John Capron was chosen to represent Tucson when the First Territorial Legislature met in 1864. He used the position to rid himself of his wife Sarah by means of a legislative divorce. Claiming that Sarah had coerced him into marrying her "by fraudulent concealment of criminal facts," his fellow legislators voted to end the union. Their practice of granting divorces to one another would continue for many years. CALIFORNIA http://www.vvdailypress.com/cgi-bin/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1041785784,72703, The Goffs Schoolhouse Cultural Center hosts a 700 volume collection of oral histories taken from "old-timers," High Desert residents with a story to tell. One such history is the tale of Fenton Gass, born on the Las Vegas Ranch in 1874. Gass came over the Mojave Road in a wagon. Twelve years ago, there was only a vandalized, condemned old schoolhouse. Now there are dozens of historical artifacts, a museum and 10 buildings, including a 6,000-volume library of local historical references that also houses Casebier's oral histories. http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200%257E20943%257E1089758,00.html Palmdale officials plan to acquire the existing Station 37 on Ninth Street East as part of an effort to revitalize downtown. One possible city use of the old fire station is to house a local history museum, an idea spurred by the donation of historical maps, books, photographs and documents donated by Antelope Valley families. http://www.vvdailypress.com/cgi-bin/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1041785720,17499, George Air Force Base was first called the Victorville Military Airport in 1941. The base trained hundreds of pilots, including glider pilots who landed behind the beaches of Normandy before the Allied invasion of Europe. With World War II over, the military used Victorville to store hundreds of bombers and fighter planes. TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY http://www.news-gazette.com/story.cfm?Number=13010 "Army Town," built to ac-commodate troops heading off to World War I, vanished a long time ago. But Hargrave has been able to locate and map its underground remains, which provide a surprisingly detailed picture of the town, without digging them up, by using high-tech methods mixing geology and physics. Hargrave works with two methods called magnetic field gradiometry and electrical resistivity. The former measures differences in iron content in soil holding organic signs of man's influence and surrounding natural dirt. The latter does the same kind of thing with differences in resistance to electrical pulses pumped into the ground. In both cases, data from the signals goes into a computer where software turns it into a subsurface feature map interpretable by archaeologists. HUMAN REMAINS http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/living/4878907.htm Elmer McCurdy was a plumber by trade, a drunk by disposition, and a criminal by inclination. In death, McCurdy's second career was born. His mummified corpse was the star attraction in a carnival. Svenvold tells McCurdy's tale with skill and ironic style that form a book that is part travelogue, part history lesson, part anthropological study and part comedy monologue. EVOLUTION http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993222 Hunting skills may not after all have triggered the tremendous burst of human evolution at the beginning of the ice ages nearly two million years ago. Instead of man the hunter, the driving force behind this evolutionary surge may have been woman the gatherer, with both mother and grandmother playing a vital role. Evolution would thus favour a long lifespan, which is closely linked to large body size and delayed maturity. Suddenly, all the major changes in human life history are explained by foraging, not hunting. CRYPTOZOOLOGY http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E53%257E1089877%257E,00.html The persistence of reported sightings of Bigfoot-type creatures in North America and elsewhere has convinced leading researchers on primates - including Jane Goodall - to call for a legitimate scientific study to determine whether the greatest apes that ever lived persist in the world's moist mountainous regions. CYBERIA http://www.pal-item.com/news/stories/20030105/localnews/714390.html Thomas said many historians, archaeologists and museum officials are not interested in black history because they are the advocates of the status quo, which glorifies the wealthy and powerful. "American society up until recently systematically depreciated the importance of the history of African people," Courtney said. ***************************************** Contact the Newsletter Editor: archaeologist@rocketmail.com dogyears@dogyears.com www.swanet.org (url) 602.697.5754 (cellular) 602.372.8539 (digital fax) 603.457.7957 (digital fax) Post letter mail and other media to: Southwestern Archaeology, Inc., P.O. Box 61203 Phoenix AZ, USA 85082-1203. SWA invites you to redistribute SWA's "Got CALICHE?" Newsletter. We also request your timely news articles, organizational activities and events, technical and scientific writings, and opinion pieces, to be shared with our digital community. SWA's daily newsletter deals with quotidian issues of anthropology and archaeology -- cultural survival, time and space, material culture, social organization, and commerce, to name just a few. Our electronic potlatch and digital totemic increase rites focus and multiply historic preservation activities in the Greater Southwest. SWA's newsletters are "txt" format only, contain no attachments, and are virus free. Archives and Free Subscription Information: www.swanet.org/news.html Thanks for reading today's edition! Southwestern Archaeology, Inc. (SWA) - A 501(c)(3) customer-centric corporation dedicated to the ethnographic study of the scientific practices of the American Southwest and the Mexican Northwest. Our goal is to create and promote diverse micro-environments and open systems in which archaeologists can develop their talents and take the risks from which innovation and productivity arise.