Threats to El Presidio de San Francisco, Mexico Recovers Pre-Hispanic Artifacts

Southwestern Archaeology Making the News - A Service of the Center for Desert Archaeology

- Stanford Professor Warns that New Management Plan for San Francisco's Presidio Will Put Archaeological Resources at Serious Risk: You may have heard that the Presidio Trust has proposed a major revision to the Management Plan for the Presidio Main Post, the area of the park that contains the archaeological site of the Spanish-colonial Presidio de San Francisco. I am writing to alert you that this revised Presidio Trust Management Plan (PTMP), if adopted, could pose serious threats to the integrity, research potential, and public interpretation of the Spanish colonial archaeological site of El Presidio de San Francisco, and to the Presidio of San Francisco National Historic Landmark District. Between now and July 31st, we are in a critical window when members of the public can provide input on the revised Presidio Trust Management Plan (PTMP) through comments to a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS). If you share my concerns about preserving the historical and archaeological resources of the Presidio of San Francisco for generations to come, I hope you will join me in expressing those concerns to the Presidio Trust.
http://www.cdarc.org/sat/presidio_trust.doc - MS Word Document.

- "Visit With Respect" Debuts at Anasazi Heritage Center: ''Visit with Respect,'' an affecting nine-minute film, attempts to protect fragile ancestral sites found throughout the Four Corners region by giving Native people a voice in describing them. The film's producers are Victoria Atkins of Anasazi Heritage Center, a Bureau of Land Management site that is the gateway to Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, and Margie Connolly and Shirley Powell of Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, an educational and research organization with a campus in Cortez.
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417542

- Mexico Recovers 929 Looted Ancient Artifacts: Mexico recovered more than 900 pre-Columbian artifacts seized from smugglers in the U.S. and Canada, including 800-year-old fiber sandals, spears and hunting bows looted from nomadic caves, officials said Friday. The artifacts were seized over seven years by customs agents in Texas, Arizona and Toronto, said Alfonso de Maria y Campos, the director of Mexico's National Anthropology Institute. It took several years to recover the objects because of the bureaucracy involved in identifying them and proving they came from Mexico, he said.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/health/story/393455.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080623-artifacts-video-ap.html

- New Issue of Pottery Southwest: The Spring issue of Pottery Southwest is now live at our website. The current issue honors Richard Bice, one of the founders of the quarterly journal.
http://www.unm.edu~psw

- Dallas Archaeologist Honored for Breaking Though Archaeological Glass Ceiling: While the pros were making jokes about high heels ruining ancient artifacts, Kathleen Gilmore, a Dallas archaeologist, was discovering some of the state's most important historical sites – such as explorer La Salle's Fort St. Louis near the Gulf – and blazing a trail for women in a field considered too dirty to be feminine.
http://www.cdarc.org/page/2jth

- Travelogue - Mesa Verde: The story of Mesa Verde so intrigues visitors that few walk away without having pondered its mysteries: Why did the people who lived here build their homes in the cliff alcoves, and why did they suddenly disappear?
http://www.kansascity.com/270/story/671337.html

- New Tour in Tombstone Highlights Industrial Archaeology: The Tombstone Consolidated Mining Co.'s Good Enough Mine Tour, owned by Andre and Shirley DeJournett, has been open to tourists and curious locals for the past 14 months. It took years of work to remove the debris, rock, equipment and dirt that had collected in the tunnels from a hundred years of monsoons and 30 years of mining. The miners used some of the old vertical tunnels as dumps for waste rock, lunch cans and a variety of equipment, Granger said. "We really want to bring mining history back to life," Shirley said. "I'm an archeologist, and I had a dream to restore this mine and to preserve it. That's all we want to do. We will not mine in the Good Enough."
http://www.cdarc.org/page/hj5o - Tucson Citizen

- Call for Papers, Society for Applied Anthroplogy 2009 Conference in Santa Fe: The Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) invites abstracts (papers and posters) for the Program of the 69th Annual Meeting in Santa Fe, NM, March 17-21, 2009. The theme of the Program is ³Global Challenge, Local Action: Ethical Engagement, Partnerships and Practice². The Society is a multi-disciplinary association that focuses on problem definition and resolution. We welcome papers from all disciplines. The deadline for abstract submission is October 15, 2008. For additional information on the theme, abstract size/format, and the meeting, please visit our web page.
http://www.sfaa.net Follow "Annual Meeting" link.

- More on Mt. Taylor Preservation: For many Native people in the Southwest, New Mexico's Mount Taylor, within the Cibola National Forest west of Albuquerque, N.M., holds a great deal of sacred significance. One of these tribes who hold Mount Taylor sacred is the Pueblo of Acoma. Its people call this mountain K'aweshtima, which means ''being a place of snow'' in their Keres language.
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417595

- Looting of the National Museum of Iraq is the Topic of the Latest Video on the Archaeology Channel: The tragic 2003 looting of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad should remind us all of the importance of cultural patrimony and the need to deter the plunder of institutions and sites everywhere. No better spokesman for this message can be found than Dr. Donny George, who relates his first-hand experience in The Looting of the Iraq Museum: An Interview with Donny George, the latest video feature on our nonprofit streaming-media Web site, The Archaeology Channel.
http://www.archaeologychannel.org

- Employment Opportunity (Flagstaff): Museum of Northern Arizona, Easton Collection Center Move Coordinator Department: Collections Status: Exempt, Temporary, Regular Full-Time, 2 Years. Supervisor: Museum Collection Manager Position Description: Two year grant funded position to assist with the planning and implementation of the move of museum objects into the new Easton Collection Center in mid-2009. The Move Coordinator will be responsible for scheduling, determining storage requirements, overseeing packing, transport and unpacking activities, tracking objects, and ensuring the safe and orderly move of collection objects. The candidate will consult with MNA's consultant conservator, negotiate contracts with vendors, and collaborate with museum collection and facilities staff, interns, students, and volunteers.
http://www.musnaz.org/jobs/movecoord.html

Thanks to Brian Kenny and Bunny Fontana for contributions to today's Newsletter.