Set aside this date right now, people:

Wednesday, October 19, 2022, time TBD: the GCAS general meeting offers an open house at the Mimbres Culture Heritage Site! Come tour the Wood House, now with 5 fully rehabilitated rooms for the Mimbres Archaeological Research and Education Center (MAREC), a joint venture between the GCAS and the Imogen F. Wilson Education Foundation (IFWEF). Come early to walk the trails of the Mattocks archaeological site and tour the museum located in the Gooch House, then follow your GCAS and IFWEF guides through the Wood House to inspect the latest action in the GCAS library and lab (plenty of fun projects for GCAS members*), and check out the rest of the MAREC facility our two groups offer to visiting archaeologists and students of all ages -- some of whom have already used our space to great success! If time allows, our monthly meeting will also have a Featured Speaker and/or a slide show. Stay tuned as time and other details coalesce.

* Sherds! Artifacts! Photos! Videos! And more!

/s/ webmaster

September 21, 2022, 7:00PM - This month's GCAS meeting is in person at the Roundup Lodge in San Lorenzo (Mimbres Valley). Start at 6PM with your own plates/utensils/beverage & a dish for yourself or to share. Brief general meeting at 6:45 PM. At 7:00 PM sharp we welcome our Featured Speaker, Silver City archaeologist Neal Ackerly, who will speak about the mines of Lake Valley including the Bridal Chamber Mine which contained one of the richest silver veins ever discovered. Join us as Neal explains:

The El Paso Museum of Archaeology on Transmountain Road has announced a new exhibit in their North Gallery that features casts of the animal and human fossil tracks found in White Sands National Park and the surrounding White Sands Missile Range, that have recently been dated to be about 23,000 to 21,000 years old. The findings have caused anthropologists and archaeologists to reconsider their assumptions of early human occupation of the Western Hemisphere.

The El Paso Museum of Archaeology's exhibit is planned to continue only through February 8, 2023, so plan your visit soon. The Museum describes their temporary display, titled White Sands Fossil Tracks, as showcasing:

The 2022 Southwest Kiln Conference is coming to town from Thursday, Oct. 6 thru Sunday, Oct. 9 at Silver City's own Western New Mexico University. Everyone is welcome and the conference is free. Expect to meet potters who work in a variety of ceramic traditions, making replicas of Anasazi, Hohokam and Mogollon pottery, offering glimpses of the entire process from collecting raw clay to forming and firing pots.

WNMU and museum director Danni Romero are hosting a conference room in the museum for lectures, and WNMU is providing an open space for the firing of the kilns. WNMU will also provide overnight parking for conference attendees who intend to boondock; contact Southwest Kiln for parking location and other details.

This report and all photos come to us courtesy of GCAS member and trustee, Kathryn McCarroll.

The forecasts of heavy monsoon rains and bad road access were greatly exaggerated for the GCAS's August 7, 2022, field trip to Pitchfork Ranch in the Burro Mountains. The weather that Sunday turned out to be splendid. A ranch employee guided a group of about 20 GCAS members and friends to a couple of small sites located within ranch property.

The sites our group visited included a small historic stone-and-adobe structure, while at other nearby areas, the group found clusters of groundstone and broken metates that may have been washed down from their former locations by years of past flooding (photo over there on the right)....

...And of course, the group photographed potsherds with varied designs and styles before returning them to where they'd been found. (That's a bit of malachite the group found among the potsherds, adding to the adventure.)

Thank you for sharing those photos and news of the field trip, Kathryn!

/s/ webmaster

Our friends at the Jornada Research Institute have alerted us that two of their upcoming international tours - part of their Overseas Journeys program - are filling up fast. Three spaces remain available for their 10-day tour in March, 2023, Exploring Roman and Etruscan Archaeological History; likewise three spaces remain open for their April, 2023, tour, Natural and Cultural Wonders of Peru. For each tour's prices and itinerary click here and contact Dave Greenwald for more information and to sign up for either or both tours! Dave adds that the JRI:

This year's Mogollon Conference is set for Friday, November 4, 2022, thru Saturday, November 5, 2022, in the Student Union building on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson, Arizona. Go here for details on registration, the Call for Papers (deadline is September 2, 2022), Conference Schedule, and more as they develop. Register before October 1, 2022, for a sweet early-bird discount. There will be a reception (cost estimated at $50-$65) hosted by Archaeology Southwest on the evening of Thursday, November 3, 2022, which offers an excellent opportunity for students to mix with faculty and the rest of the professional community.

Finally, please re-check the Conference website for periodic updates. We'll see you in Tucson!

/s/ webmaster [Photo by M.Smith]

The 2022 Southwest Kiln Conference is coming to town from Friday, Oct. 7 thru Sunday, Oct. 9 at Silver City's own Western New Mexico University. The WNMU Museum and director Danni Romero are hosting a conference room in the museum for lectures, and WNMU is providing an open space for the firing of the kilns. However, here's what SW Kiln needs from pottery-oriented folks right now:

"We are looking for folks who would like to present subjects on prehistoric pottery making on Friday and would welcome interested parties to send a note back on a subject you may want to present on."

Wednesday, August 17, 2022, 7:00 PM online via Zoom: The GCAS welcomes West-Mexican archaeologist Manuel Dueñas Garcia as our Featured Speaker for our monthly general meeting. As usual for our Zoom meetings we invite everyone to hop online about 6:45 PM to get settled while we have a brief-to-nonexistent business meeting. Manuel will begin his presentation at 7PM sharp to share his perspectives on Aguascalientes Archaeology and the Northern Border of Mesoamerica during the Epiclassic (600-900 CE).

Manuel is a graduate student at the University of California at Merced where he focuses his research on the northern frontier of Mesoamerica including long distant trade, world systems theory, and 3D records for archaeological materials. See below for two examples of his 3D model reconstructions:

We are saddened to report that longtime GCAS member, Raymon McGee, passed away at age 91 on July 26, 2022, in his home town of Deming, New Mexico.

Ray was very active in our group, especially during the 1970s through 1990s, concentrating his explorations of archaeological and historic sites in southwestern New Mexico including the Bootheel. He became so knowledgeable of the area that he led many GCAS field trips to areas unknown to most other people, including to a petroglyph site in an unnamed canyon on BLM land near Deming. So significant was this petroglyph site to our group, that the GCAS nicknamed its location as "McGee Canyon" in Ray's honor.