Obama Administration's Proposed Budget Would Eliminate Key Federal Heritage Preservation Programs

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

- Obama Administration's Proposed Budget Would Eliminate Key Federal Heritage Preservation Programs: In a shock to the historic preservation community, President Obama’s 2011 Budget Request – released this morning – slashed funding for several key components of the national preservation program. It proposes to completely eliminate funding for Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America grant programs. Perhaps what is most alarming is a White House blog that singles out these two programs as examples of programs that “weren’t working well”. Proposed funding for National Heritage Areas is reduced as well.
http://www.cdarc.org/sat/nat_trust_letter.doc - MS Word Document
Also see - http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=8203
And - http://tinyurl.com/yaxant8 - Tacoma Daily Index

- Arizona Preservation Foundation Responds to Arizona Bill SB1166 to Kill Historic Preservation Tax Exemptions: A great group of individuals truly explained the benefits of these (historic) neighborhoods to their cities and the state, the limitation put upon homeowners by historic preservation, and the difference between maintaining and restoring these homes versus the simple slab homes built in the 60s, 70s, and today. It was brought up that the increase in a tax to historic neighborhoods would provide a negligible increase to the state. Also that without the tax break there is nothing to require homeowners to retain the historic character of their homes...
http://www.cdarc.org/sat/ az_pres_foundation_SB1166.doc - MS Word Document

- Senator Gray Pitches Her Bill as Putting Historic Preservation in Opposition to Education: This week Sen. Linda Gray, R-Phoenix, came under fire for proposing a bill to eliminate a preservation-focused tax break benefiting roughly 2,400 central Phoenix historic-home owners.
http://tinyurl.com/yayzjvy - Arizona Republic

- Join the Center for Desert Archaeology Tonight for an Archaeology Cafe on Hopi History: The next Archaeology Café will convene on Tuesday, February 2, 2010. Our presenter will be Thomas Sheridan, Research Anthropologist with The Southwest Center and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. Tom will discuss how Hopi oral traditions concur and differ from the documentary record created by the Spaniards.
http://www.cdarc.org/2009/12/02/

- A Remembrance of Avocational Archaeologist & Site Steward Dwight Riggs: A year ago I sent an email broadcast announcing that Old Pueblo Archaeology Center member Dwight Riggs had recently disappeared. It was known that Dwight liked to hike into the mountains behind his house northeast of Tucson, but after he went missing Pima County Search and Rescue had covered a 12 mile grid around his home looking for him, with no luck. I regret to report that Dwight's skeletal remains were found this past week near the Agua Caliente Park in northeastern Pima County. Dwight was well-known to many of us in the Tucson area as an avocational archaeologist, an Arizona Site Steward, a member of several archaeological societies, and a person of inquiring mind who valued and supported cultural research and conservation. May he rest in peace and long be remembered. Respectfully, Allen Dart.

- DNA Analysis of Ancient Southwestern Turkeys Reveals Surprising Subspecies Designation: Modern dinner-table turkeys are descended from birds first domesticated 2,700 years in Mesoamerica, and bred with sophistication by the Aztecs. But they weren’t the only turkey tamers: Indigenous inhabitants of what became the southwestern United States had their own prize breeds, now lost to posterity.Until now, it was assumed that all domesticated turkeys could be traced to the Aztec-bred lineage. However, a genetic analysis of bones and droppings at 38 archaeological sites in the southwestern U.S. shows that the birds there belonged to a distinctly different subspecies.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/lost-turkeys/#ixzz0ePA06tnw

- Crow Canyon Annouces New President: The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center Board of Trustees announced in January the selection of Dr. Deborah J. Gangloff as the Center’s new president and CEO. She assumed her duties February 1, succeeding Dr. Ricky Lightfoot, who is retiring from the position after more than 11 years. Gangloff, who holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Rutgers University, comes to Crow Canyon with 30 years experience in not-for-profit management, nearly all of it with the 135-year-old American Forests. Outgoing President and CEO Ricky Lightfoot was reelected to Crow Canyon’s Board of Trustees and will stay involved with the Center by serving as a scholar on selected travel programs and working with various special projects.

- Special Workshop to Offer 4 Day Course on Working with Historic Photographs (Tucson): This 4-day workshop (March 13-16, 2010) is an introduction to the history, identification, and preservation of photographic materials. Participants will acquire hands-on identification skills and learn practical photograph preservation techniques. Using handheld 30x microscopes and a large set of photographic and photomechanical samples, they will learn how a variety of processes were created, why they look the way they do, and how they deteriorate. Knowledge about photographic processes is essential to their preservation and leads to a greater appreciation of the aesthetics and history of photographic prints.
http://gawainweaver.com/workshop/care-id-photos-2010-tucson/

- NATHPO Announces New Online Museum Classes: The New Year brings good news for Native American museums. The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers has received a federal grant to expand its National Native Museum Training Program and is offering six (6) online courses over the next two years. The federal grant was one of seven awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services as part of its 21st Century Museum Professionals program. Tribal museums have the mission of preserving, perpetuating and revitalizing the cultural and historic heritage of Native peoples. The National Native Museum Training Program provides a variety of opportunities for established tribal museum directors and current and future tribal museum personnel. The Northern States Conservation Center is aiding this initiative by providing three online courses in 2010 and three more in 2011.
http://www.nathpo.org/NNMTP/index.html

- Pueblo Clothing Yesterday and Today: I was reading an article recently by Marian Rodee, a noted expert on Pueblo textiles and clothing. She described a prehistoric shirt found intact in a cliff dwelling and compared it to a modern Pueblo shirt that is visually similar. In clothing of the Indians, Rodee pointed out, it is possible to observe "continuity over long periods of time."
http://tinyurl.com/ya8auf7 - Santa Fe New Mexican

- Cyarc Digitizing Spanish Missions: n a dimly lit corner of the Mission San José granary, visitors can find a large diorama of the mission as it once was during Spanish colonial times. The model is accurate and intricate — but also more than four decades old. So the National Park Service has decided it's time to dust off the models and create new, 3-D digital replicas of the four Spanish missions in the organization's care. The scans are important, park officials said, because they show the missions as they are now, providing a historical record park to which park officials can later refer. They can help officials study structural stability or wall thickness, for example.
http://tinyurl.com/yaml3bd - My San Antonio.Com

- Lecture Oppprotunity (Sedona): The Sinagua Indians were among those attracted to the Verde River and its tributaries. They farmed along the streams, hunted the hills and valleys, and built stone dwellings in the cliffs. Some of these cliff dwellings still stand. They have been the subject of much study and are the focal point of a number of parks and monuments in Arizona. You can learn more about the Sinagua, central Arizona cliff dwellings and other structures the Sinagua built when archaeologist Matt Guebard leads a discussion at 2 p.m. Feb. 7 at Red Rock State Park in Sedona.
http://tinyurl.com/y9w56j9 - Arizona Republic

- John Peabody Harrington and Chumash Heritage: John Peabody Harrington relentlessly studied Indian families for decades. Today, a 71-year-old woman who considered him a pest is grateful for his intense scholarship.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ernestine31-2010jan31,0,4949712.story

- Only 2 Weeks Left to Register for the Arizona Preservation Conference at Discounted Rates!
http://tinyurl.com/ye849nm - Arizona Preservation Foundation

Position Announcement (Flagstaff): Grand Canyon NP Cultural Resources Program Manager GS-12 (interdisciplinary) duty station: Grand Canyon South Rim, Job Announcement Number: AZSHRO 10-016 DEU. Closes: February 9, 2010. Are you (or someone you know!) interested in working for the Grand Canyon National Park as a principal advisor in the management of cultural resources and program development and implementation? This position is with the Socio-Cultural Resources Program, Division of Science & Resource management, duty stationed in Flagstaff, Arizona. Please direct any inquiries to Jane Rodgers, 928-638-7475

Thanks to Carrie Gregory, Gerald Kelso, and Michael Mauer for Contributing to Today's Newsletter