Until you can schedule a trip to the Santa Fe/Espanola area to see the Mesa Prieta petroglyphs for yourself, please enjoy a virtual tour courtesy of the Archaeological Conservancy's Virtual Tour Series. To date the Archaeological Conservancy has released four episodes showcasing some of the sites they have acquired for preservation and protection. They are all worth your time.

Scroll down at this link to check out Episodes 1 through 3, but Episode 4 is the one that is all about petroglyphs the like you have never seen before. It features their Wells Petroglyph Preserve narrated by their archaeologist, Chester Liwosz, and former owner/donor/founder of the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project, Katherine Wells. If time permits you can watch the full hour-long virtual tour here, or see the same episode in four shorter segments by clicking here.

Of course, the Archaeological Conservancy also has an ongoing Virtual Lecture Series to keep you apprised of the latest in research. Get busy!

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If you plan to travel to the Blanding, Utah area in late September, you may want to join a special one-day ceramics event on Thursday, September 23, 2021, to precede this year's Southwest Kiln Conference. It's a one-afternoon workshop in ancient ceramics painting techniques hosted by Cherylene Caver and Tori Hoopes, both accomplished ceramics replicators. Their announcement for "Painting Pottery the Ancient Way" describes,

The Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project in Velarde, New Mexico, recently added to their website two short virtual tours of some select petroglyphs under their protection. If you cannot travel to tour Mesa Prieta in person, these virtual tours give you a taste of how unique the site with its 100,000+ petroglyphs truly is. Descriptive text accompanies these virtual images, which can be rotated in 3D for enhanced viewing pleasure. Check out their Heraldic Lions Tour or their Shields and Shield Bearers Tour, then follow the link to their Sketchfab page to have fun with even more 3D petroglyph images!

/s/ webmaster [photo via Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project]

The El Paso Museum of Archaeology reopens on June 24, 2021, with a new schedule. Anyone can visit from Thursdays through Saturdays, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and admission is free.

The Museum announces that their regular galleries will be open as well as their special exhibition, “From the Edge of Center: The Chacoan Outliers.” Visitors to the special exhibit will enjoy artifacts from the Museum's permanent collection as well as items from the Salmon Ruins near Farmington, New Mexico, on loan from the San Juan County Museum Association.

For more information contact Jeff Romney at 915-755-4332 or romneyjk@elpasotexas.gov.

Perhaps a GCAS field trip to El Paso is in order?

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The Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project in Velarde, New Mexico, has produced a virtual tour of their extensive site that anyone can enjoy. You may have to navigate through one or two screens on this link, or perhaps this link, but it is worth a few minutes of your time to see glimpses of this very unique and important site. If you have never visited the site you will enjoy this brief introduction to it. If you have already visited in person you will be thrilled to see some of its highlights again.

Please also consider sending a donation to the MPPP to support their preservation efforts. Once it becomes feasible for public health you may consider visiting the site yourself. Plan a few days, as there are 6 different trails among the petroglyphs to sign up with a docent to see!

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Our very own GCAS President, Kyle Meredith, tells us a tale of a trip to Peru from years past. He said he was prompted to write after having seen a blog post on our website with a link to an article that discussed Peru's papa nativas (native potatoes) and the archaeological site of Moray, Peru. Welcome back, Kyle!

A blast from the past! I have a propensity for falling in love with every place we go, but Peru more than others. So much of it looked so familiar. I had to look up Moray on the map because I could have sworn we had seen it, but actually it looked very similar to Pisaq in many ways, also in the Sacred Valley. In fact, the reason it looked so much like Pisaq is because one of their photos WAS Pisaq from almost the exact same spot that I took the photo.

The Southwest Kiln Conference, established in 2003, is devoted to the art, science and technology of recreating the prehistoric pottery of the American Southwest. Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic they are adapting their annual conference to the circumstances. From Southwest Kiln:

This year's Mogollon Conference is set for Friday, October 23, 2020 thru Saturday, October 24, 2020, in the Student Union building on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson, Arizona. The organizers announce that "This year features some changes, including a no-charge conference dinner hosted by Archaeology Southwest on the evening of October 23 (Friday). We felt that a broadly welcoming approach would allow students a better opportunity to attend the dinner and mix with faculty and the rest of the professional community."

All potential presenters please note that Saturday, August 1, 2020, is the last day to submit an abstract of a paper to the conference coordinators. Click here for submission details, registration info, and more, and consult the announcement and Call for Papers itself: Download 2020 MogCof Call for Papers. Finally, please re-check the Conference website for periodic updates. We'll see you in Tucson!

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Some time ago there was a post on this here website discussing the consumption of wild potatoes in the US Southwest by native populations as early as 8000-9000 BCE. It appears similar activity was occurring far to the south, in Andean cultures. Emergence Magazine provides us a "Potato Travelogue" of Peru. The investigative authors describe that:

Our very own GCAS President, Kyle Meredith, has dropped by this part of the blogosphere to take us all on a virtual trip that he and two other hardy GCAS members (plus one mascot) recently took to a petroglyph site near Deming. All text and photos are courtesy of Kyle Meredith. Away we go!

Back in April, Josh and I and Greg went for an overnighter down south of Deming to look for a hill with petroglyphs we had been told about. I located our probable destination on a map and set up a route on my GPS.