The GCAS's education coordinator, Marilyn Markel, is in full swing with the annual archaeological workshops she offers for students from local schools. She needs the help of volunteers to guide students at various stations during these outdoor experiential workshops located at the Mimbres Culture Heritage Site. No experience is necessary at all; just an enthusiasm to work with young students, many of whom have never before experienced hands-on archaeological activities.

Please mark your calendar for one or more of the following dates to help these kids have a great day in the Mimbres Valley! Telephone Marilyn Markel at 575-536-9337 ASAP for all details and to sign up, or email [email protected]!

Join our monthly GCAS meeting at the Mimbres Valley's Roundup Lodge, 91 Acklin Hill Road in San Lorenzo, New Mexico, near the junction of Highways 152 and 35, when we welcome our Featured Speaker, Katie Baustian - Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Doors open at 5:00 PM for a potluck dinner so bring a dish for yourself or to share. Brief GCAS business meeting begins at 5:30 PM followed immediately by Katie's presentation that will guide us to: Understanding the Mimbres Through Bioarchaeology.

Using bioarchaeological and archaeological methods, Katie Baustian's work explores the use of violence, adaptations to stress, and social relationships among the Mimbres and Mogollon of the prehistoric American Southwest. She excavated for seven seasons at the Harris and Elk Ridge sites in the Mimbres Valley but has more recently been conducting research at museum repositories to understand how teeth can show evidence of relatedness and kinship in the region.

In order to offer our members a safe and comfortable experience at our in-person meetings the GCAS follows CDC and New Mexico Department of Health guidelines for indoor gatherings including masking, distancing, and vaccinations. We recommend all attendees follow the same.

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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]

Saturday, April 22, 2023, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM: The annual Earth Day/Continental Divide Trail Days celebration in Gough Park, Silver City, brought to you by the Gila Resources Information Project (GRIP), happens next Saturday! The GCAS has typically had a booth at this event, with educational materials of all kinds and a variety of fundraising/sales items; please email Marianne or telephone her at 772-529-2627 to volunteer some time to help us set up, run, and break down our booth on Saturday.

For further information on the additional events are happening all weekend including a Talks of the Trail speaker series, a community celebration, and CDT hikes, contact GRIP directly.

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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:

Set aside Saturday, April 15, 2023, 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM to attend the next FREE installment of the Community Conversation Series in downtown Silver City's Silco Theater, sponsored by the Western Institute for Lifelong Learning (WILL) and the Silver City Museum. From 11:10 to 11:40, headline speaker Susan Berry, author of Built To Last: An Architectural History of Silver City, New Mexico will discuss Silver City's varied historic organizations and associations. Following her presentation, representatives of three local organizations - including the Grant County Archaeological Society - will give the audience brief overviews of their respective groups' mission, projects, and accomplishments. Please join us to meet members of some of the other organizations in our community and to learn more about what the GCAS has been doing in its 95-year existence!

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Saturday, April 22, 2023, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM: It's the annual Earth Day/Continental Divide Trail Days celebration in Gough Park, Silver City, brought to you by the Gila Resources Information Project (GRIP).

The GCAS has typically had a booth at this event, with educational materials of all kinds and a variety of fundraising/sales items; please email Marianne or telephone her at 772-529-2627 to volunteer some time to help us set up, run, and break down our booth on Saturday.

For further information on the additional events are happening all weekend including a Talks of the Trail speaker series, a community celebration, and CDT hikes, contact GRIP directly.

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There's no better time to join the GCAS or renew your membership than right now!

Membership runs from January through December of the current year. Our individual membership is $20 and our family membership is $30. Click through to this page to either renew online via our PayPal link, or to download, print, fill out our Membership form, and send it with a check by mail to: Grant County Archaeological Society, PO Box 1713, Silver City, NM 88062.

Thank you for joining us!

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Current GCAS member and supporter, and past member of the Mimbres Foundation, archaeologist Pat Gilman announces that the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society is in the preliminary stages of planning a field trip to the Mimbres Valley from Friday, March 10, through Sunday, March 12, 2023. They've booked a room at the Little Toad Creek Brewery for Friday dinner (March 10), hoping that they can also use the room for a brief Powerpoint overview of Mimbres archaeology presented by Pat Gilman herself.

AAHS is inviting GCAS members to join them for the March 10 dinner - dutch treat - and then join them for any or all parts of the weekend tour they have in mind. Pat reminds us that the AAHS is still in the early planning stages for this field trip, but she asks GCAS members to “Please let me know if you can join us for dinner and the show*.  The Little Toad Creek Brewery would like to know about how many people will be at dinner.  I don’t need to know if you will join us for any parts of the field trip itself, but I hope you can.  I want to show off what you all have done, and I’d like you to talk about it. And I’d like our members to be able to chat with you all who know so much about the local archaeology and the valley.”

Saturday, April 22, 2023, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM: It's the annual Earth Day/Continental Divide Trail Days celebration in Gough Park, Silver City, brought to you by the Gila Resources Information Project (GRIP).

The GCAS has typically had a booth at this event, with educational materials of all kinds and a variety of fundraising/sales items; please email Marianne or telephone her at 772-529-2627 to volunteer some time to help us set up, run, and break down our booth on Saturday.

For further information on the additional events are happening all weekend including a Talks of the Trail speaker series, a community celebration, and CDT hikes, contact GRIP directly.

/s/ webmaster