Unite Against Mining Historic Apache Site!

I just read the following article and it made me terribly upset.  If you agree this is a travesty, and an act against our Native Americans, please contact your Senators and Congressmen, and President Obama.  We, Americans, do not need copper so badly that we destroy the sacred places and historic sites of our native peoples - people who welcomed the white-skinned strangers from across the sea, offered them food and shelter, and then stole their native lands, homes, and hunting grounds.  It's just sickening!   The article is titled:
"Planned Arizona Copper Mine Would Put a Hole in Apache Archaeology

By 

Zach Zorich 

10 December 2014 3:00 pm

 

Archaeologists and Native American tribes are protesting language in a Senate bill that would approve a controversial land exchange between the federal government and a copper mining company—a swap that may put Native American archaeological sites at risk. The bill is needed to fund the U.S. military and is considered likely to pass the Senate as early as today.

The company Resolution Copper Mining hopes to exploit rich copper deposits beneath 980 hectares of Arizona’s Tonto National Forest. The land, however, also contains important archaeological sites and places sacred to local Native American tribes, especially the Apache. “This is the best set of Apache archaeological sites ever documented, period, full stop,” says John Welch, a former historic preservation officer for the White Mountain Apache Tribe and a professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada.

Archaeologists fear that the standard process for approval of a land exchange is being sidestepped. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) lays out a process to determine a land transferal’s potential impact on the environment, archaeological and historic sites, and places sacred to Native Americans. The language inserted into the defense spending bill states that the land will be transferred to Resolution Copper 60 days after an environmental impact statement, part of the NEPA process, has been completed. That prejudges the outcome of the evaluation, says Jeffrey Altschul, president of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in Washington, D.C. “The bill says that Congress has already decided that the land swap will take place,” he says, “so we’ll do the land swap and then we’ll do NEPA.”

Resolution Copper has pointed out that there will be an environmental review in any case. In a statement published in 2013, the company says that the NEPA review will take place “[u]nder any circumstances,” including if work on the exchange begins at the same time. 

The swap has been controversial for years. Between 2005 and 2011, bills proposing it diedin committee five times in the House of Representatives and six times in the Senate, says David Lindsay, SAA’s government affairs manager, who tracks legislation for the organization. Those bills faced determined opposition from Native American tribes. Attaching the land exchange rider to the defense spending bill is a way to circumvent that opposition, says Michael Nixon, an environmental lawyer who works with the Maricopa Audubon Society and has fought the land exchange since the beginning. “Stuffing riders into... bills that are not germane to the subject is undemocratic,” he says. 

What is at stake is a landscape that has remained essentially unchanged, except for a few modern roads, since the Hohokam people lived there more than 500 years ago, says J. Scott Wood, an archaeologist for the Tonto National Forest. The area was once a trade center where the Hohokam exchanged goods from as far away as the Pacific Coast. It also preserves a full range of Apache archaeological sites, which are rare. Little is known about Apache history prior to contact with Europeans.

The most important historic site is called the Apache Leap, where a group of Apache who were being pursued by U.S. cavalry plunged off a cliff to their deaths rather than be captured. The land exchange rider exempts Apache Leap from becoming part of the copper mine, but it’s right next door, says Vernelda Grant, who is the tribal historic preservation officer for the San Carlos Apache Tribe. She says that having a working copper mine next to the site will change how people experience it. The same holds true for other culturally sensitive sites nearby, such as a place called Devil’s Canyon “where the spiritual beings that represent healing live,” Grant says. “We have songs and ceremonies that are sung there—it’s a place to just pray and pray for healing.”

The Senate is expected to pass the defense spending bill as early as today; the House has already passed it. Next, it will go to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature, and archaeologists don’t think there is much chance of changing or removing the rider. “They should be going through the standard process that everybody else uses to get a mine going,” says Simon Fraser University’s Welch. “It’s really suspicious to be coming up with new laws every time somebody wants to put in a mine.”

Posted in Archaeology, Funding Budget 2015 "

 ***Please, if you love history, archaeology, and/or the American West - contact your US government representatives and say that this proposal is unacceptable!!! ***

Apache Mountain, where warriors plunged to their deaths rather than surrender to the US Cavalry, could soon overlook an open copper mine.

We Need Rain!

I know that, right now, most folks in northern Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Maryland do not want more rain at the moment - after quite a drought, they were dumped on by the tropical storm.  But we need rain here in the southwest.  We had a mini-shower yesterday evening - just enough to dampen the ground, but under tree branches, the ground stayed dry...  It was just enough to tantalize.  I'm spending 45 minutes each morning and evening watering the garden, and then watering all the potted and hanging plants - so a nice rain would be appreciated!
  The sun is shining and the kits are outside, playing in the back yard.  I fed and watered the Thore critters, then watered the garden and plants, and was still at Aiko and Yoshi's for a walk and breakfast before 6:15.  We had a nice stroll, and then a play period before I headed home for my kits.  Lovey and Nedi greeted me at the door, and talked to me the entire time I was producing their breakfast.  After eating, they both got lots of love and stroking.  I miss them immensely.
   I know that as I gotten older, I've gotten more absent-minded.  I put something down, and can't remember where; sometimes I put things in strange places, where they don't normally go; and I do occasionally walk into a room and find I've forgotten why I'm in that room...  But.  BUT.   But, I have never done what a 19-year-old mother did the other night.  She placed her baby, in its car seat, on top of the car, and then drove off - with the baby on the roof.  She never noticed that it fell off the roof, behind her vehicle.  She had been drinking and smoking pot - with the baby's father, and with other friends. She realized that she no longer had the baby when she got home.  So she called her friends, and then back-tracked herself.   She found the police and her baby.   The baby is in the custody of Protective Services and the mother is in jail.  I hope that I never get that bad, regarding my memory!
   Yesterday marked the beginning of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee; she was crowned 60 years ago, and only her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, has had a longer reign sitting on the British throne.  Two spectacular races were run yesterday at Epsom Downs, with the Queen in attendance, and the two most historical races were both won by a son of Montjeau.  St. Nicholas Abbey won the Coronation Cup (for the second time) and Camelot won the Investec Epsom Derby.  Both colts are cousins of I'll Have Another, who will try to win America's Triple Crown this coming Saturday.  (And, of course, all of these three thoroughbreds have the bloodline of *Forli and Hyperion - like FancyFax, at Sleepy Hollow in Micanopy, Florida.)
  And, finally, a surprise archaeological find at Burnt Mound, near Dunstaffnage, on the west coast of Scotland -  A dig on the site of a new housing development near Oban has uncovered what are believed to be some of Scotland’s earliest cold storage larders in six Bronze Age roundhouses. A team led by Dr Clare Ellis, from Argyll Archaeology, claim the roundhouses at Dunstaffnage are the first in Scotland to have ring ditches inside the structure. These may have been used as cellars to cool food – a precursor to the refrigerator.  They also have vents leading into the central hearths which would have allowed the occupants to regulate their heating, while outside are the remnants of what could be a very simple form of sauna.

"Wild" Creatures and the Past

I slept like a rock last night.  Nedi was beside my legs and Lovey was curled up at my waist.  We had our second freezing night for the fall, and it's only 37 degrees outside, now, at 9 a.m. - Maybe I'll enjoy the heat and humidity of Florida! -  Nedi is curled up on the bed right now; Lovey is getting some sunshine.  I'm not walking the Rs at the moment because Remy is seeing the chiropractor this morning.  I did enjoy seeing NCIS last night - and I got a kick out of the way the team was trying to find "the perfect woman" for Gibbs to date.  I think that he will always choose his own ladies.  -  I had planned on being at home this weekend with the kids, but it looks as if I might be with Maggie, instead.  I'll return from Florida on the first, and start pet-sitting on the third, with Finn and Skippy.

What a wild, crazy, and sad time near Zanesville, Ohio!  People started calling the sheriff's office to report "exotic animals" being seen along the highway yesterday afternoon.  A Mr. Thompson had permits to keep lions and tigers, bears, giraffes, camels, cheetahs, wolves and orangutans and chimps.  The primates were found all safely caged in Thompson's house.  Thompson, however, was dead in the yard; all the large animal enclosures had their gates open, and all the gates off the property were open.  There were 48 large animals loosed - nearly all have been shot dead.  The sheriff gave the order to "shoot to kill" last evening, when it was reported that the owner was dead and the creatures were loose.  Several of the animals were standing next to the open doors of their cages when they were killed.  Photos of the dead animals have made me cry.  One large cat (type not identified) was struck by a car and killed on the highway.  These animals are scared witless!  It's a shame that the shoot to kill order was given! (Even though I do realize that the sheriff is/was trying to protect the residents of his county...)

If you know me, you know that I am fascinated by history.  I've been excited by recent finds that have been announced over the past few days....  A fully intact ship-burial with a Viking warrior has been found on the Scottish Highland peninsula of Ardnamurchan in Lochabar.  It has been dated to the tenth century, and contained a whetstone from Norway, a ring pin from Ireland, and pottery from the Hebrides.  Most of the warrior's skeleton has decayed, but part of his jaw and several teeth have been recovered, as well.  He was buried with his broadsword, a bronze-headed axe, his conical helmet, and his shield was placed above him.  ....  At Bredon Hill, immortalized by a poem in A. E. Housman's 1896 anthology, A Shropshire Lad, the reportedly largest ever treasure trove of gold has been found.  Details of what it includes are sketchy, and the finder has not been identified. But it is understood the Worcestershire County Council and the county coroner have been informed because of the potential archaeological significance. The treasure, found at the site of an Iron Age fort in Worcestershire, is already being compared with the Staffordshire Hoard, the country’s biggest ever find of Anglo Saxon gold. ....  After standing for at least 4,000 years, the standing stone at Bedd Morris on Newport Mountain has fallen. It was broken off below ground level, and is believed to have been run into by a motorist during the weekend.  Well over six-feet tall, the bronze-age stone is now a parish marker between Newport and Pontfaen in Wales.  The National Park Authority is investigating.  ....  And in Dangtu, Anhui Province, China more than 40 cultural relics have been found in a 400-square-meter tomb that is 2,000 years old.  It is suggested that the tomb belonged to an aristocrat of Yue, one of the seven Warring States during the Warring States period (475 to 221 BC).  One of the most gorgeous, and yet tiny, pieces was a "dragonfly eye" glass bead. This kind of jewellery was made by nomadic tribes in Mediterranean countries in the 10th century BC and was believed to keep misfortune away from the wearers, as well as to play the role of money, Gong Xicheng, deputy director of the provincial archaeological institute said.

Archaeology and Migraines

I awoke with a rip-roaring migraine this morning - Lovey's normal vocalizations left me quivering like a jelly even though I put the pillow over my head. I got up, finally, and upon standing, discovered how nauseated I was.... Skipping the rest of the details, I notified the Rs Mom that I wouldn't be there to walk the kids this morning, and I went back to bed. I did, however, crack the patio door open, and the kits ate breakfast and went out as I settled back in bed. When I awoke the second time, both kits were curled up with me in bed. I still have a minor headache, but it is not an agonizing one like this morning. That's the reason this blog is being posted so late in the day. Currently, the patio door is, again, open, and the kits are napping just inside the door, having had a little pan-roasted turkey breast with me for brunch. It's in the mid-80s, and while it's not really hot, our humidity is increasing - it's up over 60%, which is scandalous in Colorado!

And I need to apologize to one of my favorite archaeologists - I left a letter off the end of Phil Harding's name in a previous blog. I really do enjoy The Time Team - and I was surprised to find that they are in their 16th broadcast season this year for Channel 4 of Great Britain. I have always enjoyed spokesman Tony Robinson - whether he's doing a Time Team presentation or portraying Baldrick in Black Adder with Rowan Atkinson. Tony always brings a spirit of zest with him - even when he has a tremendous cold. But Phil is my favorite - a Wiltshire man, born in 1951, and an excellent flint knapper - just because he does get down in his trenches and wallows in the dirt like a great big kid having a good time. He was introduced to digging when he was 8 years old, and the farm owner (where his Mum did the books) suggested he might be interested in the dig, which was on his property near Stonehenge. Phil decided then and there that he wanted to be an archaeologist - but he was working full time in a puppet factory when he finally got the call to work full time on a site. He plays the guitar and banjo and loves the blues - and he even got "caught up in today's capitalism" and owns shares in his local brewery. He works full time for Wessex Archaeology, does his work on The Time Team digs, and still gives flint knapping demonstrations whenever he can fit them into his schedule. My hat is off to a man who knew what he wanted, is doing it every day, and still has fun at work!!