Following up on our previous post, here is one poet's view on such destructive expressions of privilege. Matthew Olzmann wrote:

Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America

- Southern Pines, NC

Tell me what it's like to live without

curiosity, without awe. To sail

on clear water, rolling your eyes

at the kelp reefs swaying

beneath you, ignoring the flicker

of mermaid scales in the mist,

looking at the world and feeling

only boredom. To stand

on the precipice of some wild valley,

the eagles circling, a herd of caribou

booming below, and to yawn

with indifference. To discover

something primordial and holy.

To have the smell of the earth

welcome you to everywhere.

To take it all in, and then,

to reach for your knife.

/s/ webmaster

Update on the 11/23/2024 vandalism of a petroglyph panel on public land in Utah: law enforcement have identified both perps. The woman, Daniela Ganassim Erickson, was arrested 11/30 and now sits in jail on felony vandalism charges. While she awaits a visit from the Consequences Fairy, we'd like to remind everyone that it was involvement by the public in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management that led to such a quick result. Members of the public who care enough about ancient places to do something when they see acts of destruction, really do make a difference and help preserve our patrimony. Thank you!

/s/ webmaster

The Kane County, Utah Sheriff's Office and the Bureau of Land Management would like a word with them.

On November 23, 2024, the Kane County Sheriff's Office received a report with 4 photos of two people caught in the act of vandalizing a petroglyph panel near the Wire Pass trailhead in Kanab, Utah - a popular hiking area near Arizona's northern border. If anyone recognizes the people or the vehicle in these photos, please contact the Kane County Sheriff's Office on their Facebook page, or by telephone at 435-644-2668 or 436-644-4916.

Thank you for any help you can give to protect our public lands.

/s/ webmaster [all photos courtesy of Kane County Sheriff's Office]

On a very warm and sunny Sunday, August 4, 2024, twenty one members of the Grant County Archaeological Society (GCAS), coming from as far away as El Paso, Texas, gathered together to explore the Archaeological Conservancy’s Treasure Hill site located in our very own Arenas Valley. Archaeologists consider this Late Pithouse-to-Mimbres Classic site (roughly 550 CE – 1130 CE), comprising a total of 100 rooms in 6 room blocks plus an additional 24 outlying sites, to have been the largest Mimbres community in the middle Rio de Arenas/Whiskey Creek watershed. Unfortunately Treasure Hill, like so many other Mimbres sites, has suffered heavy looting from the late 19^th Century to the present. A major road and residential development surround it and it has accumulated windblown trash as well as garbage carried in by unauthorized visitors.Consequently...

Sunday, August 4, 2024, 10:00 AM: This month's field trip takes the GCAS to Treasure Hill, located 4 miles east of Silver City in the Arenas Valley and about 1 mile south of Highway 180. Treasure Hill is a heavily looted 15-acre site with a total of about 100 pueblo rooms, ranging from the Late Pithouse to the Classic Mimbres era (about 550 CE - 1130 CE). We will meet at the gate to the site at 10:00 AM sharp but this site is in a sensitive location so please contact trip leader Marianne Smith ([email protected] or phone/text 772-529-2627) for specific directions.

On November 3, 2023, one of our GCAS members alerted me to a disturbing article that has appeared at least twice in Rock & Gem magazine - most recently on October 30, 2023. The TL;dr is that the article encourages people to loot artifacts on public lands.

The GCAS was impelled to respond:

The GCAS operated their customary educational booth in Gough Park for Earth Day, April 22, 2023, thanks to members Marty Eberhart, Marilyn Markel, Kathryn McCarroll, and Marianne Smith. The typically breezy April day attracted 67 vendors to Gough Park - 15 more than had attended in 2022! The visiting crowds, estimated by a local newspaper at about 4000, included local residents, out of town visitors, and a healthy number of through-hikers on the Continental Divide Trail. The GCAS earned a prime spot in the park where our volunteers worked three separate tables with hands-on educational activities for all ages, as well as offering plenty of literature for the more intellectually inclined. Our booth displayed wrapped rocks as an eye-catcher and even sold a few to support our GCAS library and general fund. Many more passers-by grabbed our brochures so if you see new faces at future meetings, please make them all feel welcome!

/s/ webmaster [Photos by M.Smith]

Wednesday, April 19, 2023: the GCAS meets at 2045 Memory Lane in Silver City, New Mexico. Light refreshments provided; OK to bring your own light snacks or handy meal (burrito, etc.) and beverage if desired. Doors open at 5:00 PM for socializing. Meeting starts at 5:30PM sharp with a super-short business meeting followed at 5:45PM by this month's Featured Speaker: historian, award-winning author, and GCAS member Carolyn O’Bagy Davis. Carolyn is a fourth-generation descendant of Utah pioneers who has written 16 books on the history of archaeology, quilting, and Southwestern history. So far. When taking breaks from writing, she has curated numerous traveling museum exhibits. Please join us as Carolyn reintroduces our group to Bert and Hattie Cosgrove, avocational archaeologists who were very active in our area during the 20th Century and who were instrumental in documenting and preserving a number of local sites, including Treasure Hill in the Arenas Valley. As Carolyn describes in Hattie Cosgrove: Pioneer Mimbres Archaeologist:

Wednesday, June 15, 2022, 6:30PM - free and open to the public: Ashleigh Thompson of Archaeology Southwest discusses how to Save History: the Importance of Protecting Archaeological Sites from Looting and Vandalism as the next presentation of the 2022 lecture series sponsored by Archaeology Southwest and the University of Arizona Preservation Archaeology Field School. Lecture location is 8179 Highway 180 West in Cliff NM 80288. Look for the cream building with the orange portable toilets on the north side of Highway 180 just east of Shields Canyon Road and the highway yard. (This is 2.2 miles west of the 180-211 junction in Cliff.) This talk is an essential component of the 2022 field school currently underway in Cliff, and we of the GCAS encourage everyone to attend to learn more about what's going on in our own neighborhood.

/s/ webmaster

Loss of important scientific data does not just happen with cultural artifacts like Mimbres pottery. It happens with fossils, too. GCAS member Kathryn McCarroll links to an article discussing the international trade in blood amber, a fossil-rich amber mined only in Myanmar. Paleobiologist George Poinar recently wrote that "...scientifically valuable fossils...end up in carvings and jewelry and [are] lost for future generations...."