Today's Guest Blogger, GCAS President Kyle Meredith, introduces the Featured Speaker at our next GCAS general meeting on November 20, 2019:

Greg Conlin is the current GCAS Vice President in charge of Field Trips. He has been active in our group for almost 15 years, including the NM SiteWatch program, for which he is currently Site Steward for the Woodrow Ruin. He assists with our educational programs and has volunteered for professional excavations in the Gila/Mimbres area. He was a 2019 recipient of the Richard A. Bice Award for Archaeological Achievement presented by the Archaeological Society of New Mexico. For many of the past several years he has spent time traveling throughout the Andes in Ecuador, Peru, and northern Chile. His adventures take him well off the beaten path to places that most tourists have never heard of. His travelogues include photographs of sites that predate the Inca culture and give us a glimpse of ancient empires (and today's rural lifestyles) largely ignored by popular tourism.

Everyone is invited to come to the November 20 GCAS general meeting beginning at 6:00 PM at 2045 Memory Lane in Silver City, New Mexico. Light refreshments will be provided. After the meeting, Greg will tell us about what lies "Beyond Machu Picchu: a Travelogue of Pre-Columbian Architecture in Peru." We'll see you there!

/s/ wemaster

Today's Guest Blogger is our very own GCAS President, Kyle Meredith, accompanied by Guest Photographer and GCAS Field Trip Coordinator, Greg Conlin. Together they report on a very satisfying visit to the Fort Bowie National Historic Site in southeastern Arizona:

We couldn’t have asked for better weather on our field trip to Ft. Bowie. Greg and Josh and Kyle arrived at the Tyrone parking lot way too early, but were gratified when new member, David Burr, and veteran member, Janet DeLoache, showed up for the adventure. We were all able to fit into one car (with Greg’s little dog Layla) and arrived at the trailhead ready for lunch before heading up the trail. We traveled as a pack, each asking questions and sharing our observations about the vegetation, landscape, and signage on the loop to and from the fort.

Thanks to today's guest photographer, Chris Overlock, all of cyberspace can now share in the GCAS's exploits at our archaeology booth on September 28, 2019, at the Mimbres Valley Harvest Festival. [Photo by C. Overlock. L to R: G. Conlin, M. Gendron, M.Smith.]

Our Marilyn Markel outdid herself in providing 33 local children a hands-on series of fun projects in experimental archaeology. The volunteers running the GCAS booth introduced passers-by to our group's activities and encouraged them to examine our archaeological information displays.

Sales proceeds from GCAS T-shirts have been earmarked for our educational programs during the 2019-2020 school year. The funds generated by our used-book sales will be spent by our GCAS Library to replace scientific volumes that have either been damaged or lost. For this, the GCAS is grateful to all the visitors to our Harvest Festival booth for supporting our volunteer programs with their purchases. Thank you all so very much - we'll see you at next year's Harvest Festival! [Photo by C. Overlock. L to R: M. Gendron, G. Conlin, M. Smith, M. Markel.]

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The time and the place to be: Las Cruces. 7:00 PM. Thursday, November 14, 2019. Karl W. Laumbach, archaeologist, Director of the Cañada Alamosa Project, and Associate Director of Human Systems Research, Inc., continues his monthly series of lectures entitled, "A Synthesis of Twenty Years of Archaeological Discoveries on the Cañada Alamosa." On November 14 Karl will discuss "Early Pueblos in the Cañada Alamosa: Mimbres and Socorro."

All lectures in this series are FREE and start at 7:00 pm in the Social Center Auditorium at the University Terrace Good Samaritan Village, 3011 Buena Vida Circle, Las Cruces. For contact info and details of the entire series, please check out HSR's PDF: Download Canada Alamosas Lectures in Cruces-1 or scroll through our "Events" page for all the upcoming action in this lecture series and more!

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One of our core missions is to preserve and protect archaeological resources through education. Large groups of local students and their teachers are taking field trips to the Mimbres Culture Heritage Site. We of the GCAS provide volunteer guides for these field trips, coordinated by our very own Marilyn Markel.

Many students from two schools are planning field trips between the date of this post and November 22, 2019. Please take time to assist Marilyn in showing these young visitors their rich heritage. No experience is necessary for any of these field trips; Marilyn will quickly get you up to speed. Please help with one or both:

One of the GCAS's core missions is to preserve and protect archaeological resources through education. Several groups of local students and their teachers are taking field trips to the Mimbres Culture Heritage Site. We of the GCAS provide volunteer guides for these field trips, coordinated by our very own Marilyn Markel.

Large groups of students from two schools are planning field trips between the date of this post and November 22, 2019. Please take time to assist Marilyn in showing these young visitors some of the rich heritage that their area offers them. Bonus: no experience is necessary for any of these field trips; Marilyn will quickly get you up to speed. Please help with one or both:

Plan to be in Las Cruces at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, October 23, 2019. That's when Karl W. Laumbach, archaeologist, Director of the Cañada Alamosa Project, and Associate Director of Human Systems Research, Inc., continues his monthly series of lectures entitled, "A Synthesis of Twenty Years of Archaeological Discoveries on the Cañada Alamosa."

October 23's lecture addresses "Pithouse Life on the Cañada Alamosa." All lectures in this series are FREE and start at 7:00 pm in the Social Center Auditorium at the University Terrace Good Samaritan Village, 3011 Buena Vida Circle, Las Cruces. For contact info and details of the entire series, please check out HSR's PDF: Download Canada Alamosas Lectures in Cruces-1 or scroll through our "Events" page for all the upcoming action in this lecture series and more!

/s/ webmaster

One of our core missions is to preserve and protect archaeological resources through education. School is in session and several groups of local students and their teachers are taking field trips to the Mimbres Culture Heritage Site. We provide volunteer guides for these field trips, coordinated by our very own Marilyn Markel.

Large groups of students from two schools are planning field trips between the date of this post and November 22, 2019. We need GCAS members to take time to assist Marilyn in showing these young visitors some of the rich heritage that their area offers them. Bonus: no experience is necessary for any of these field trips; Marilyn will quickly get you up to speed. Please help with one or more:

The GCAS is happy to have awarded funds through our group’s inaugural Nancy Coinman Grant Awards program for the 2018-2019 scholastic year to two graduate students of archaeology: Samantha (Sam) Bomkamp and Thatcher Rogers. They each have described the status of their research that our group’s Coinman awards helped support. Two days ago we published Samantha Bomkamp’s research summary; today we launch Thatcher Rogers’s progress report.

At the time of this writing Thatcher Rogers  is a PhD student in Anthropology/Archaeology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He is an experienced archaeologist of the southern New Mexico/northern Chihuahua region with expertise in ceramic analysis. He is also proficient at locating under-utilized museum collections and analyzing their data for potentially new insights.

The GCAS was pleased to award funds through our group’s inaugural Nancy Coinman Grant Awards program for the 2018-2019 scholastic year to two graduate students of archaeology: Samantha (Sam) Bomkamp and Thatcher Rogers. They have each provided us with interesting progress reports describing their research that our group’s Coinman awards helped support. Today, we begin at the front of the alphabet with Samantha Bomkamp’s research; on October 16 we will publish Thatcher Rogers’s report.