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PERUVIAN COUPLE CONTINUES FIGHTING TO PRESERVE HOMELAND 04/15/99 A Peruvian husband-and-wife team of historians is fighting a proposal by their country's government that would allow cable car service to run through the remote, ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu. Mariana and Franklin Pease will speak today in Houston at the Institute of Hispanic Culture on building international support to help save the mysterious ruins atop the Andes cliffs. Machu Picchu is believed to have been a center of religious ceremonies for the Incas in the 15th and 16th centuries. It receives about 1,000 visitors a day. The project to run cable cars between the village of Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu has been discussed since the 1960s. A report from the International Council on Monuments and Sites said the cable cars could increase annual visits from 300,000 to 1.5 million. But the Peases say transportation for tourists doesn't have to come in the form of cable cars that would be highly visible from most of the Machu Picchu site. "We can improve the service that is already in place with trains and small buses that travel through the canyons," Mrs. Pease told the Houston Chronicle for today's editions. "It may not be as convenient, but part of the mystique of Machu Picchu is its remoteness." The couple are seeking support from the World Monuments Watch in New York to help preserve the ancient site as part of an effort to increase public awareness in the United States about the fragility of the site and the need for international cooperation. The Peases point to a 1997 memorandum of understanding between the United States and Peru that restricts imports of archaeological material from pre-Hispanic cultures. The memo stated the governments would "collaborate in the preservation and protection" of the country's cultural history. Mrs. Pease said Machu Picchu and what used to be the Inca empire, stretching along the western coast of South American, are very important parts of world history. She noted that most recently, archaeologists uncovered three Inca corpses at the summit of a volcano in northern Argentina. The find _ buried under a cache of statuettes, pottery and ornate textiles _ is believed to be the remains of a ritual sacrifice 500 years ago. Archeologists and other scholars said the findings should yield important insights into the religion and the worship of sacred mountains in the Inca empire.
PARK SERVICE BEGINS AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS IN SAND CREEK SEARCH 04/15/99 The National Park Service will begin aerial photograph surveys next week in its project to verify the site of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre. Surveyors will seek traces of historic trails believed to have crossed Sand Creek during the opening months of the war between the white settlers and plains tribes, said Park Service project manager Rick Frost. In November 1864, Col. John M. Chivington led units of the Colorado Militia in an attack on the winter camp of approximately 600 Cheyenne and Arapaho along Big Sandy (Sand Creek). Accounts of how many Indians were slain vary, with state historian David Halaas estimating the death toll at around 160. Three sites are being studied: The Dawson site, historically thought to be where the massacre occurred, is approximately eight miles north of the town of Chivington in Kiowa County. The site on the Bowen ranch is north of the Dawson site and the third site is south of Dawson. The park service has until July 2000 to verify the massacre site and report to Congress on the its historical significance and how the site could be protected and maintained. Frost also will meet with representatives of the Northern and Southern Cheyenne and the Northern and Southern Arapaho on Monday and Tuesday in Lamar, to discuss research design and a memorandum of understanding for the project. "We need to develop a protocol on how to treat artifacts or human remains," Frost said. "A lot of this already is dealt with in Colorado state law, but it's a matter of great concern to the tribes and to the Park Service." In addition to the aerial surveys, more core sampling of soil at the sites is also scheduled, he said, and archaeological work is expected to start in late May at the three sites. Metal detectors and magnetic resonance imaging will be used by the archaeologists, but they won't excavate the sites, Frost said. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., who is part Cheyenne, sponsored the bill that became the Sand Creek Massacre Site Historic Preservation Act.
http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/STATE/t000034282.1.html After long decades of doing dirt to native Americans, the United States made a few posthumous atonements. One of these was a 1990 government policy that "repatriates" ancient bones for formal burial.
http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpmt2z.htm The Iroquois Confederacy will no longer accept the removal and reburial of Indians' remains when they are unearthed by development projects. The Iroquois delegation told Gov. George Pataki's counsel Judith Hard on Friday that it does not want the bodies of the four Senecas removed. Archaeologists were to begin taking away the remains on Monday.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/skeleton990416.html A 25,000-year-old child’s skeleton in Portugal believe it represents compelling evidence that humans as we know them today evolved from mating between Neanderthals and anatomically modern man.
http://reuters.townnews.com/reuters/index.inn?story=/stories/argentina-mummy.htm Argentine archaeologists have discovered the mummy of a baby wrapped in leather and straw in a cave in the northwestern province of Catamarca, where the dry Andean mountain air preserved it for 1,500 to 2,000 years.
http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Apr/16/city/CIVI16.htm Probation would just trivialize the marketing of these important historical and cultural items. Wilhite admitted to the undercover agent that he knew the Civil War flag had been stolen.