Anasazi News

 And, while busy writing,  I've archived the scattering of news reports coming out. I will  be adding them to this list in a week or so.

Conservationist have objected to the proposed site by site listing strategy  because they hope to have whole sections of the canyon listed.

The research was reported in the Journal of Archaeological Science and is summarized in a brief article in The Columbus Dispatch.

Proposals to improve the road have typically stumbled over conflicting interests of those who would like to preserve the canyon's remote feeling and local residents who desire more reliable access to their properties. In addition, County Commissioners have been unable to get easements from some local land owners, and costs of surveying and securing environmental impact clearance now appear to exceed the San Juan County's resources. 

The proposal would change the status of agreements whereby the the National Park Service is responsible for  preserving  artifacts and ruins within the monument while the land is owned by the Navajo reservation. The National Park Service has not taken a position on the proposal. However, several canyon residents who are members of Tsegi Diné oppose the  takeover because they don't believe the Navajo Nation has the expertise to manage the canyon.

Dating is complicated by the salt water which sometimes distorts carbon dates, but preliminary indications are that the skeleton represents human presence in the Americas before the ice free corridor which made it possible for people to migrate from Beringia. In addition, physical characteristics of the skull suggest that the individual represented came from south asia rather than from the north. 

You can read the full report on National Geographic News.

These areas include some of the most distinctive and well preserved Anasazi sites and public reaction to the proposed redesignation has been decidedly negative. The Salt Lake Tribune headlined " BLM proposal jeopardizes ancient ruins" and Utah channel Fox 13 noted that "Critics Fear BLM Land Plan Risks Anasazi Relics."  The Desert News has chimed in as well and has space for reader comments.

According to the critics, redesignating the area will substantially change the "focus" of activity, but the BLM counters that it will more accurately reflect conditions on the ground and improve oversight and protection. My opinion is that the BLM is right for once! The focus has already changed as a result of countless visitors hiking the trails and visiting the sites. For example, I first visited Moon House a couple decades ago and substantial local knowledge was required to find the site. Today, well-trod trails lead to it along with other sites in the area. 

The Salt Lake Tribune has followed up with an editorial (dated September 8, 2008) vigorously attacking the BLM  for inviting destruction of relics and "trying to make a clean sweep of it before President Bush leaves office, issuing management plans for Utah public lands that favor all-terrain vehicles and energy development over wildlife, water, scenic beauty and archaeological treasures."

You can download the proposed plan from this link.

Utah Department of Transportation archaeologist Pam Higgins describes the site in deep red, sandy soil as home to a single family and noted that no human remains were found. The pit house measured about 13 feet in diameter and contained several storage containers plus a hearth in a covered communal area.  Several broken pots were also found at the site and Higgins says they could be repaired easily.

The final site report will not be available for  a year or two, but a brief account is printed in The Salt Lake Tribune.

The pre-Clovis sites along with DNA evidence suggest that early wanderers may have traveled by boat or along the coast from Siberia to North America. Waters near the Bering Strait are the most likely route and US News & World Report has a nice essay summarizing current thinking.

However, this is a good time for secondary players, like yours truly, to summarize theories that are being fleshed out. Chapter 1 of The Anasazi Guide summarizes much of what's known about the origins of the Anasazi and Kris Hirst has recently synthesized current speculation about the peopling of North America.  Her Archeology Blog is always good reading and this entry summarizes four lines of theorizing: 

• Clovis and the Ice Free Corridor
• Preclovis and the Pacific Coast Migration
• Solutrean Precursors to Clovis
• Trans-Pacific Contacts

A few, a very small minority, hold that people could have reached the new world from Europe by following a north Atlantic ice shelf. Represented by archaeologists Bruce Bradley and Dennis Stanford, this minority position emphasizes similarities between Clovis artifacts and those created by the Upper Paleolithic Solutrean culture. The similarities include the shape and flaking of Clovis points, use of ivory shafts and points, and presence of needles and shaft straighteners.

Kris Hurst has posted a nice synopsis of the evidence supporting the Solutrean-Clovis connection along with a number of helpful links.  Incidentally, although Kris does not mention it, there is a modest amount of genetic evidence suggesting an Indo-European migration to North America. 

Readers may also notice a substantial oversight in the article--it doesn't mention the cultural differentiation that had begun to splinter the Anasazi world long before the ultimate collapse. Although we use the word, "Anasazi," as if referring to a single coherent community (aka, "tribe") linguistic evidence suggests the people did not think of themselves as members of a common group. Pueblo and Hopi descendants speak nearly a dozen distinct languages and I suspect the cultural differences made it easy for the ancestral people to engage in conflict with people where were not like themselves. 

Initially reported in Science on April 3rd, the story was promptly picked up by Fox News, the Discovery Channel, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. And, you can watch an interview with Dennis Jenkins, the principal investigator, on The Archeology Channel.

Chapter One of The Anasazi Guide explains why this finding has attracted so much attention and Kris' Archeology Blog has a nice synopsis along with some additional links.

Using isotopic ratios of hydrogen and copper measured by a secondary ion mass spectrometer, Hull and her colleagues demonstrated that it is possible to uniquely characterize turquoise deposits. They analyzed twelve turquoise mines and defined 10 turquoise provenance regions. In addition, they found that 13 of 17 artifacts recovered in northwestern New Mexico "fell into several distribution patterns of characterized source regions, suggesting that turquoise was obtained from several source areas and moved over long distances."

You can read the abstract and purchase the article, "A new approach to determining the geological provenance of turquoise artifacts using hydrogen and copper stable isotopes," or view a capable summary with links on Kris' Archeology Blog.

The Anasazi emerged from a group of hunter-gathers who migrated to the "new world" from Asia. Chapter One of  The Anasazi Guide summarizes what we knew about the peopling of North America just a year ago. Since that time, genetic, linguistic, and archaeological studies have filled in many gaps and several critical publications are noted below; see stories reported on March 12, 2008; March 4, 2008; February 4, 2008; and November 27, 2007.

Keeping abreast of the "breaking news" can be a bit of a headache, but an article published today will simplify the task for you. Ted Goebel and colleagues, "The Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas," Science review the existing data and conclude that "evidence implies dispersal from a single Siberian population toward the Bering Land Bridge no earlier than about 30,000 years ago (and possibly after 22,000 years ago), then migration from Beringia to the Americas sometime after 16,500 years ago." Nonsubscribers can read the abstract and purchase the article, but  a  capable summary on Kris's Archeology Blog will save you the cost and provides a number of interesting links.

Genetic information about the first people that migrated to North America has been relatively sparse. The result has been a less than complete picture of the origins of the people we call Anasazi. The inadequacies have been at least partially resolved in a recent study by Alessandro Achilli and colleagues, "The Phylogeny of the Four Pan-American MtDNA Haplogroups: Implications for Evolutionary and Disease Studies ."

Drawing together genetic sequences previously cataloged in various publications, Achilli and colleagues demonstrate that 95% of all living Amerinds are derived from just six (6) ancestral mothers who lived between 18,000 and 21,000 years before present. Significantly, the MtDNA characteristics of the six lines are not present in Asia lending support to the claim that the people evolved in Beringia--a now submerged land mass between Siberia and North America (see the news report dated February 14, 2008 below). In addition, the findings are moderately controversial because they raise additional questions about the "Clovis first" hypothesis.

The Achilli study is available online, but many readers will find it difficult reading. Helpful and relatively complete synopses have been reported by The Washington Post and Fox News, and Chapter One of The Anasazi Guide includes a helpful discussion of the genetic evidence. 

Vajda has demonstrated that Ket, an "old world" language spoken by a few hundred Siberians living along the Yenisei River in western Siberia, is closely related to the languages spoken by many Athabascan tribes including the Tlingit, Eyak, Navajo, and Apache.  While he stops short of asserting a genetic link between the peoples, others have provided that evidence (see stories reported below on February 14, 2008 and October 25, 2007). 

The Anchorage Daily News has published a readable summary of his work and its significance, and his recently revised essay is available online.  Chapter One of The Anasazi Guide includes background that will help you put this research in context. 

For more information about Mesa Verde, see Chapters 9 and 13 of The Anasazi Guide.

1. The root stock of Native American people emerged in Asia at least 50,000 years before present,
2. A portion of this population moved to Beringia--a now submerged land mass between Siberia and North America--and remained there for a considerable period of time, and
3. About 15,000 years before present, this population moved to North America and expanded rapidly to fill the continent.

Since publication, this article has attracted some interesting and well-informed comments.  The thread is available on PlosOne.

For more information about Chaco Canyon, see Chapters 9 and 10 of The Anasazi Guide.

While museums and other organizations have grumbled a bit about returning artifacts, substantial controversy arose in 2000 when scientists opposed returning Kennewick Man to Indian groups of questionable affiliation. In response, two proposed wording changes are now before congress.  

Kris Hirst  has a pair of posts on Archeology.com that summarize the proposed changes as well as responses to them. If you haven't followed the controversy, I recommend that you read her first post before moving on to the second. Links in both posts provide useful background information about the law and controversy regarding its application to Kennewick Man.

As part of an agreement with the Tesuque Pueblo which claims cultural affinity to the recently discovered pueblo, city officials closed the excavations to public viewing and retained artifacts without study or consultation with archaeologists.

Now, the city has taken one more clandestine step; seeking to rebury the artifacts without systematic study or analysis. This peculiar, and probably illegal, procedure is reported by The Santa Fe NewMexican.

To help put their findings in context, there is a helpful summary of prior research on About.com's archeology page.

New dating of Clovis sites is even more interesting. The revised dates between--13,050 to 12,800 years before present--suggest that the culture was more ephemeral than previously believed. Whereas earlier work had suggested that Clovis spanned roughly 500 years, the revised dates roughly halve that figure and push back the dates for the Archaic era. 

The first article recounts recent news stories about the collapse of an ancient lake in North America. Dubbed  "Lake Anasazi," the lake collapsed about 8,200 years BP and dumped millions of gallons of cold water into the North Atlantic. The result was a major cooling epoch that significantly altered the climate and roughly bounds the transition from Paleo-Indian to Archaic eras.

The second article summarizes recent debates about Kennewick Man and proposed changes to the Native American Protection and Repatriation Act.

Links to additional information are included with each story.

The account is a helpful introduction to the site and includes links to more detailed discussions.

A less formal summary of the study can be found on the Fox News web site. Chapter One of The Anasazi Guide includes background that will help you put this research in context. 

The article is a brief introduction to the site and you can find more information on the Center for Desert Archeology's "Visiting Places of the Past" page.

1. Migrants from Asia paused in Beringia--a now submerged land mass between Siberia and North America--long enough for mutations to distinguish them from the founding Asian populations, and 
2. Once the migrants entered the new world, the population spread rapidly resulting in relatively little genetic diversity in North and South America.

The Mesa Verde National Park Boundary Expansion Act of 2007 was unanimously passed by the House of Representatives and will now be considered by the Senate. If passed and signed into law, the bill will add 324 acres to the Park. For details, see this brief article in the Cortez Journal.

For more information about Mesa Verde, see Chapters 9 and 13 of The Anasazi Guide. 

For more information about Chaco Canyon, see Chapters 9 and 10 of The Anasazi Guide. 

For more information about Canhyons of the Ancients, see Chapters 9 and 14 of The Anasazi Guide. 

The 20th Anniversary Southwest Symposium is scheduled for January 17-19, 2008 in Tempe, Arizona. The conference will focus on three themes: Movement, Connectivity, and Landscape Change. Although the conference is conducted primarily for academics and other researchers, there are several papers that will appeal to anyone fascinated by the Anasazi:

• Wesley Bernardini (University of Redlands) and Severin Fowles (Barnard College), Becoming Hopi, Becoming Tiwa: Two Pueblo Histories of Movement
• William Lipe (Washington State University) and Tammy Stone (University of Colorado, Denver), Standing Out Versus Blending In: Pueblo Migrations and Ethnic Marking
• Jeffrey J Clark (Center for Desert Archaeology) and Karl W. Laumbach (Human Systems Research, Inc.), Pueblo Migrations in the Southern Southwest: Perspectives from Arizona and New Mexico
• Ruth Van Dyke (Colorado College), The Chaco Connection: Intervisible Landscapes
• Greg Schachner (UCLA), Ritual Places and Landscapes: Connecting Southwest People and
  Societies across Time and Space
• Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa (Hopi Cultural Preservation Office) and Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh (Denver Museum of Nature & Science), The Past is Now: Hopi Connections to Ancient Times and Places

The paucity of news is due to timing of the archeological field season. In the spring, sites are being opened--or reopened--and many news releases describe the sites and explain excavators' anticipations. During the summer, news releases report important findings that confirm or alter researchers' expectations as well as their implications for theories and interpretations.

News releases taper off with the changing seasons, and the fall is a "slow" season. Researchers are closing sites for the winter and will soon begin the hard work of analyzing finds and composing formal reports. This work is less sexy than excavation, but it builds the knowledge base on which new theories and interpretations rely.

Don't despair. By the end of November, news releases will begin to flow again and you can expect a deluge beginning in January. 

A more complete summary reads as follows: "The early development of agriculture in the New World has been assumed to involve early farming in settlements in the Andes, but the record has been sparse. Peanut (Arachis sp.), squash (Cucurbita moschata), and cotton (Gossypium barbadense) macrofossils were excavated from archaeological sites on the western slopes of the northern Peruvian Andes. Direct radiocarbon dating indicated that these plants grew between 9240 and 5500 14C years before the present. These and other plants were recovered from multiple locations in a tropical dry forest valley, including household clusters, permanent architectural structures, garden plots, irrigation canals, hoes, and storage structures. These data provide evidence for early use of peanut and squash in the human diet and of cotton for industrial purposes and indicate that horticultural economies in parts of the Andes took root by about 10,000 years ago."

And, Nature.com has added a nice summary with the title  Ancient seeds reveal Andean crops.

Childs' version of Four Corners prehistory, already praised as a popular text, is best read as a nice if overly long travelogue. As revisionist theory prompting further study, it's timely, but the book's intended audience means the prose is often vague, the ideas oversimplified or unsupported and the agenda's emphasis on violence too biased to credit wholeheartedly.