Thursday, May 5 through Sunday, May 8, 2022: it's ASNM's Annual Meeting hosted by the Taos Archaeological Society. Virtual. Click on this page and scroll down to their registration link and more. Early registration ends April 15, 2022, so step lively!

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Thursday, June 2 through Sunday, June 5, 2022: the Tularosa Basin Conference will be held in Ruidoso at the Convention Center. Pre-registration required as seating will be limited: $35 for adults, $25 for seniors and students. Current JRI members pre-register at $25 for adults and $20 for seniors and students. Keynote speaker on the evening of June 2 is Deni Seymour, PhD/JRI Research Associate, who will describe her recent discovery of a series of sites that she firmly associates with an alternate route the 1540 Coronado Expedition used for travel into southern Arizona. June 3 and 4 offer a series of presentations on topics associated with the Tularosa Basin, Sierra Blanca Region, and Ruidoso. June 5 will offer guided tours to various sites and points of historic interest. Space will be limited so sign up early for the tour of your choice. Watch the Jornada Research Institute's website for conference updates as they develop, including a registration flier/return slip, details on Deni Seymour's keynote speech, and tour information.

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The Las Cruces District of the Bureau of Land Management is seeking qualified and motivated applicants from the public, as they describe below. One category of participants includes stakeholders with the "Archaeological/Historical Interests" we value, so please consider serving on this worthwhile Advisory Council. The BLM announces:

"WE NEED YOU! We are seeking public nominations for vacant positions and positions that will become vacant on our Southern New Mexico Resource Advisory Council, which advises the BLM on public land issues within the Pecos District, Las Cruces District, and Socorro Field Office.

We will consider nominations through April 4. Nominees will be selected based on their training, education, and knowledge of the Resource Advisory Council’s geographical area."

 

Find and review the applications here, a description of the two New Mexico Regional Advisory Councils here, and more information at BLM's web page for the Advisory Council.

March 16, 2022, 6:45PM via Zoom: This month's GCAS general meeting features archaeologist and PhD candidate Scott Nicolay. Specific topic TBD so watch this space for updates. (Teaser: a discussion of the ritual use of caves in the prehistoric Northwest Mexico/Southwest US region may be involved.)

Scott works with Dr. Holley Moyes out of the University of California at Merced in examining the ritual use of caves in prehistory. Scott's research interrogates the archaeological record of ceremonial caves from the prehistoric U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico in order to interpret major social, political and religious reorganizations that repeatedly swept the region prior to European contact, and how these shifts mesh both with prehistoric climactic change and contemporaneous events in the Mesoamerica core and periphery.

Our friends at Archaeology Southwest continue the last two of their FREE online Zoom presentations in their Avian Archaeology season. Set the dates and register soon:

April 5, 2022, 6:00PM MST: “A Rafter of Burials: Sapa’owingeh Turkey Interments” offered by Rachel Burger (Southern Methodist University). More info and registration here.

May 3, 2022, 6:00PM MST: Archaeology Southwest closes their Avian Archaeology season with "Birds of the Sun: Macaws, Parrots, and People" - presented by Christopher W. Schwartz (Arizona State University), Patricia A. Gilman (University of Oklahoma) and Stephen Plog (Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia). More info and registration here.

Enjoy!

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Here is some news we've all been waiting for! We are thrilled to report that Danielle Romero - our longtime friend, Mimbres scholar, and the GCAS's 2020 Coinman Grant Award recipient - is the new Director of the WNMU Museum in Silver City, New Mexico.

The WNMU Museum is home to the NAN Ranch Collection: the largest and most complete collection of Mimbres materials in existence from a single prehistoric Mimbres site, and the largest and most comprehensive permanent interpretative exhibition of Mimbres pottery and artifacts in the world. Not only will Danielle bring her knowledge and enthusiasm to these and the museum's other collections, she hopes to work closely with the GCAS - providing all us avocational archaeologists remarkable learning and volunteering opportunities!

Following are the University's announcement to their staff/faculty, and a few words from Danni herself:

In April and May, 2022, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center will present two free Zoom lectures that relate to our very own back yard: imagery of the Mimbres Valley; and the ongoing archaeological excavations at Elk Ridge. Mark your calendars for these two dates!

The first offering is on Thursday April 21, 2022, 7:00-8:30PM, ARIZONA/Mountain Standard Time (same as Pacific Daylight Time), online via Zoom: it's Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s “Third Thursday Food for Thought” free program featuring The Mimbres Twins and the Rabbit in the Moon by archaeologist Marc Thompson, PhD.

2022 is well underway and there's no better time to join the GCAS or renew your membership!

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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We of the GCAS tip our hats to geologist/archaeologist Andrew R Gomolak! He kindly submitted to us an article and links to a series of short YouTube videos presenting Deni Seymour's findings from her archaeological excavations of the first sites in Arizona that can be attributed to the Coronado Expedition of 1539-1542. Andrew advises that the following materials are public information, with no restrictions on distribution; having enjoyed them ourselves we present them here for all our readers. Deni Seymour's work appears to be a monumental step forward in determining the Coronado Expedition's exact route through southern Arizona.

Andrew forwarded to us Deni's own description of her research:

February 16, 2022, 6:45PM via Zoom: It's the GCAS's regularly scheduled monthly general meeting, featuring Cody Dalpra M.A., R.P.A., District Archaeologist for the Las Cruces District Office of the Bureau of Land Management. Cody will discuss Landscapes of the Past American Southwest: Cultural Meaning from Ethnographic Viewshed Analysis. Cody describes,