Archeology E-gram July 2021

A change of face for the E-Gram! As the E-Gram has gained more support, it has outgrown the e-mail space where it customarily lives when delivered to you. We don’t have funding for a magazine-type format, but have decided to move to a different way of delivering archeological news. Titles of news items will be listed in the body of the e-mail announcement and the full E-Gram will be appended to the message. That way, you can scan the titles and read the news items that intrigue you.

Archeologist Adam Johnson is Regional Cultural Resource Specialist, Pacific Islands

Adam Johnson joined the (Legacy) Pacific Region Regional Cultural Resources and Science Program on July 6, 2021, as Regional Cultural Resource Specialist for the Pacific Islands. It is the first permanent position funded by the WASO CRPS Directorate for increasing regional program capacity.

Johnson brings 20 years of experience in cultural resource management for private, state, and federal organizations. He joined the NPS in 2008 as the archeologist for Pu`ukohola Heiau NHS. In 2009, he accepted a permanent position as the Integrated Resources Manager/Supervisory Archeologist for Pu`uhonua o Honaunau NHP, a position he held until 2016, when he left the NPS to pursue his Ph.D. A native of Hilo, Hawaii, Johnson earned his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Hawaii; an M.A. in Maritime Archaeology from the University of Southampton, Southampton, U.K.; and an M.A. in Anthropology from Southern Methodist University, where he is currently a Ph.D. candidate.

Johnson has engaged in preservation projects working with park trades, professional staff, and community groups. His expertise in technology such as terrestrial laser scanners and drones for documentation and stewardship was demonstrated in the response to the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami that led to research on the effects of island subsidence and climate change driven sea level rise on coastal archeological resources. Johnson was also the lead archeologist for the Pu’ukohola Heiau NHS Earthquake Stabilization Project (2007-2011) that won the 2015 Cotter Award for projects.

Welcome back, Adam!

Archeologist Ron Fields is Superintendent of Arkansas Post National Memorial

Ron Fields is the new superintendent of Arkansas Post National Memorial. He currently serves as the Integrated Natural and Cultural Resource Specialist at Salinas Pueblo Missions NM. A 13-year veteran of the NPS, Fields worked as a seasonal park ranger in interpretation at Mesa Verde NP and at Petroglyph NM as an archeologist. He became a permanent employee through the Pathways Program.

Fields earned a MA from the University of New Mexico, where he also currently is working on his Ph.D. in Anthropology/Archeology. He graduated from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio with BA in Anthropology and History. Fields will assume his new role mid-September.

Archeologist Lloyd Masayumptewa is Superintendent of Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot National Monuments

Lloyd Masayumptewa is the new superintendent of Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot NM. Masayumptewa (Piivayouma) is Hopi from the third mesa village of Orayvi (Old Oraibi) and is of the Water-Coyote clan. He has been the acting superintendent of Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot NM since March 2021.

Masayumptewa previously served as the deputy superintendent for the Southern Four Corners Group of parks, which includes Navajo and Canyon de Chelly NM and Hubbell Trading Post NHS. He has also held positions as the superintendent of Hubbell Trading Post NHS, the cultural resources program manager for the Southern Four Corners Group, and the ruins preservation and archeology program manager at the Flagstaff area national monuments including Wupatki, Sunset Crater Volcano and Walnut Canyon NM.

Masayumptewa first began his National Park Service career in 1998 under the Student Career Employment Program at the Flagstaff area national monuments. Upon earning his MA in 2001 from Northern Arizona University, he gained permanent employment as an NPS archeologist. He assumed his new role on July 18, 2021.

Anthropologist Jim Ireland is Superintendent of Bryce Canyon National Park

Jim Ireland as the new superintendent of Bryce Canyon NP. Ireland has almost 30 years of NPS experience and has served as the superintendent of Timpanogos Cave NM for almost 10 years. Ireland has served as the acting superintendent of Bryce Canyon NP since April 2021. Ireland also served as the NPS Utah state coordinator, acting as the liaison to state, county and local officials and other federal agencies and representing Utah’s 13 NPS units on statewide committees and working groups.

Ireland grew up in a family that camped in national parks and forests, which led to an early interest in a career with NPS. During high school, a park superintendent at nearby Petrified Forest NP invited him to participate in a youth internship for local students. This led to Ireland’s first seasonal NPS job in 1983. Ireland had a strong interest in cultural resources and he received a B.A. in anthropology from the University of Arizona.

Ireland spent nine years as a seasonal interpreter, fee collector and law enforcement ranger in multiple parks across the country before his first permanent position at Gateway Arch NP in 1991. He held subsequent permanent assignments at Natural Bridges NM, Amistad NRA and Kenai Fjords NP. Ireland also acted in a temporary assignment at Fort McHenry NM and Hampton NHS. In 2009, Ireland was held a Bevinetto Fellowship in Washington, DC.

He assumed his new role on July 18, 2021.

National Park Service Museum Technician Alan Chilton Passes

Alan Chilton passed on July 10, 2021, after a brief illness. He was 64. Chilton was a museum technician at Fort Scott NHS and, for the last decade, at Wilson’s Creek NB. He was also a seasonal employee at Petrified Forest NP and Wilson’s Creek NB in the early 1980s, performing some of the difficult clearing of Osage Orange trees from Bloody Hill. Chilton not only worked tirelessly to preserve collections at Fort Scott and Wilson’s Creek, he served on regional teams throughout the Midwest and helped secure collections at Agate Fossil Beds NM, Ozark Scenic Riverways, and Nicodemus NHS.

Chilton used his deep knowledge of museum collections to assist researchers. Notably, his assistance to researchers culminated in the location of rare glass plate negatives of the Civil War trans-Mississippi Brown Water Navy; and his research tying a Mexican War/Civil War flag to the Truman family.

Alan will be missed by all that worked with him. Permanent online condolences, stories and photos may be shared at www.hhlohmeyer.com.

National Park Service Prepares for Excavations at Brown V. Board of Education

A team of archeologists — Jay Sturdevant, Adam Wiewel, Nikki Klarmann and Robert Hoard — spent two days in Topeka recently laying the groundwork for an excavation project to take place next summer at the Brown v. Board National Historic Site. The Kansas Archeology Training Program field school will be June 3-19, 2022. The public is welcome to help excavate land archeologists believe will yield artifacts and the foundations of demolished buildings.

International Archaeology Day

International Archaeology celebrates its eleventh year this October. Get your park involved by holding a public archeology event any time during October (you can add it to the IAD calendar) or through online participation options like the fall Tweetathon. Subscribe to the International Archaeology Day newsletter for Collaborating Organizations and supporters to stay up to date.

This year, the Archaeological Institute of America is inviting interested groups to participate in an #IADArtifact of the Day feature. Submit an important artifact from your park to participate and it will be promoted on social media in the days leading up to International Archaeology Day on October 16, 2021.

Contact: Meredith Langlitz ([e-mail]).

National NAGPRA News

On July 9, 2021, the Department of the Interior invited Tribal leaders and Native Hawaiian Community leaders to consult on a draft proposal of revised NAGPRA regulations. The Department also provided a summary of previous tribal consultation in 2011 and an explanation of the ways the draft proposal addresses that input. Following tribal consultation, the Department plans to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking for public comment in October 2021.The revised regulations are the result of dedicated effort by David Tarler and National NAGPRA Program staff; and Carla Mattix, Stephen Simpson, and Brady Blasco, the Solicitor's office attorney-advisors.

The NAGPRA Review Committee will meet via virtual conference this summer. The meetings are open to the public and there will be time for public comment. Agenda, meeting materials, and access links are available online. The Review Committee is currently planning to meet in person on October 13 and 14 in Bloomington, Indiana. The Miami Nation of Oklahoma and Indiana University will co-host the meeting. Plans are subject to change based on community health circumstances, Federal travel policy, and approval by the Department of the Interior.

Park Science Magazine Issues 2021 Call for Submissions

Have you developed a non-invasive way to locate sensitive cultural resources? Do you have an effective new flood-risk research application to share? Did your globally important citizen science bat experiment have unexpected results? If so, we want to hear about it. The newly imagined Park Science magazine is now accepting submissions for the next issue, which it expects to publish by the end of 2021.

The issue's theme is “Parks for Science and Science for Parks in the 21st Century.” There are three topics for which we are soliciting articles: Making Science More Inclusive; Climate Change Research Applications; and Cross-Disciplinary and Landscape-Scale Conservation and Preservation.

The deadline for submissions is August 31, 2021. All authors, regardless of NPS affiliation or occupation, are welcome to submit.

Contact: [e-mail]

New National Historic Landmarks Theme Study Released
The NPS National Historic Landmarks Program has released a new theme study, Civil Rights in America: Racial Discrimination in Housing. Authored by Matthew D. Lassiter and Susan Cianci Salvatore and prepared in cooperation with the Organization of American Historians (OAH) and National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers (NCSHPO), this theme study is part four of the five-part Civil Rights in America series which uses the provisions of 1960s civil rights acts as a framework. This fourth installment examines the history of housing discrimination against African American, Latinx, American Indian, and Asian American people leading to passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

The complete accessible PDF is available for download here.

Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland has announced the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a comprehensive review of the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies. She has directed the Department to prepare a report detailing available historical records, with an emphasis on cemeteries or potential burial sites, relating to the federal boarding school program in preparation for future site work.

Beginning with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, Federal laws and policies established and supported Indian boarding schools across the nation. The purpose of the schools was to culturally assimilate Indigenous children by relocating them from families and communities to residential facilities where identities, languages, and beliefs were forcibly suppressed. For over 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their communities. While more than 350 schools existed in the US, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, there has been no comprehensive accounting of their impact.

The Initiative is an investigation about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of residential Indian boarding schools. The primary goal is to identify boarding school facilities and sites; the location of known and possible student burial sites located at or near school facilities; and the identities and Tribal affiliations of children interred at such locations.

The work will proceed in several phases and include the identification and collection of records and information related to DOI oversight and implementation of the Indian boarding school program; formal consultations to clarify the process for protecting identified burial sites and associated information; and the submission of a final written report on the investigation to the Secretary by April 1, 2022.

“Each of those children is a missing family member, a person who was not able to live out their purpose because forced assimilation policies ended their life too soon,” Haaland said.

If American Indian children who were removed from their homes and died in boarding schools are to be restored to their communities and families, it seems likely that the work of locating and identifying children in unmarked graves will have to rely on archeological methods and DNA testing. It may be an opportunity for archeologists and American Indian communities to work together to address long-standing wrongs.

Rural Utilities Service Advertising Archeological Positions

The USDA Rural Utilities Service is seeking to fill three permanent positions in their Washington, DC, office. These positions are located in the Engineering and Environmental Staff, Assistant Administrator Water and Environmental Programs - Rural Development - Rural Utilities Service. The primary purpose of this position is to serve as a resource to headquarters (HQ) and field staff regarding the environmental and historic preservation and cultural resources.

For more information and to apply, visit USAjobs.

• DEU: https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/608084000
• Merit Promotion: https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/608087300

The Federal Archeologist’s Bookshelf: Two articles about archeology in popular literature

“A Proponent of Provocative Ideas” by Tamara Jager Stewart, American Archaeology 2021. 25(2):26-32.This lovely tribute to late Paleoindian archeologist, Dennis Stanford, has wonderful photographs, beginning with the volume’s front cover, evoking the verve and enthusiasm he brought to archeology.

“The Desecrators” by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson The Washington Post Magazine July 18, 2021.This wide-ranging article is built around the central story of the arrest of one of the country’s most prolific pothunters, Don Miller, in 2015. The author visits a number of related topics – reasons why people collect artifacts from other cultures; fascination with graves; the international antiquities market; the loss of Native American lands.

Dickinson recounts Miller’s activities and events that led to his arrest (he was never prosecuted) and interviewed FBI agent in charge of the case, Tim Carpenter. She explores perspectives and responses of Native American communities, recounting NAGPRA statistics about human remains in museums that are, by now, familiar to anyone working in Federal archeology and repatriation.

What might be missing from this article is the context needed to separate the work of archeologists from the work of pot hunters like Miller for the public. Superficially, archeologists’ work, blurred by Indiana Jones and other screen portrayals of archeologists, looks a lot like pot hunting – both remove objects and bones, both place a high value on them, and both emphasize ownership. The difference is that pot hunters fetishize (and commodify) what they find, and archeologists attempt to share the vast amount of information that has been learned from careful and scientific study of the objects and remains. The depth and breadth of knowledge about a wide array of subjects, from histories and movements of individual tribes to the peopling of the New World, to climate change and human feats of adaptation is only possible through scientific archeology. This – our contributions to human knowledge – is what separates archeologists from pot hunters.

GRANTS AND TRAINING National Park Service Cultural Resource GIS Training Available

The NPS WASO Cultural Resource GIS Facility has developed a new training course for cultural resources. It supports the national cultural resource GIS dataset on the Common Learning Portal as a Learning Activity. This training, intended for both technical and non-technical staff, is a nine-part video series totaling about an hour. The course explains the purpose and role of the national dataset, describes who can access it, what sort of data is included in it, discusses how sensitive data is generated and handled, and provide real-world and theoretical examples of how the data can be used throughout parks/regions/programs of the NPS to solve problems and better inform our workforce. Many thanks to Matt Stutts for developing the course and to James Orr for posting it on the Common Learning Portal!

Look for Introduction to the National Cultural Resources Dataset though the CLP at this link: https://mylearning.nps.gov/xapi-courses/introduction-to-the-national-cultural-resources-gis-dataset/

Thriving Earth Exchange Fellowship Program for National Park Service Employees

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Thriving Earth Exchange program advances community solutions by helping scientists, community leaders and sponsors work together to solve local challenges related to natural resources, climate change, and natural hazards. Through a partnership with the NPS, the AGU will train select NPS employees to serve as Community Science Fellows. Fellows facilitate projects by working closely with communities to identify priorities, determine the scientific information needed, help scope and develop a project, and recruit and liaise with professional scientists.

Who can apply? This opportunity is open to all permanent NPS employees who are passionate about community science and have connections with a community who wish to engage. A science degree or science-related position is not required. Applicants must demonstrate that their supervisor is supportive of their application and aware of the time and resource commitment.

The application process runs June – September 7, 2021. Applicants will be chosen by NPS and Thriving Earth Exchange staff. Notification of acceptance will occur in late September 2021. The application can be found on the Thriving Earth Exchange website. To learn more, watch a recorded webinar for NPS employees which aired on June 2, or visit the Thriving Earth Exchange website.

Contact: NPS Science Access and Engagement Coordinator, e-mail us.

SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC: National Parks Are Embracing Indigenous Astronomy

From article by Stephanie Vermillion, Outside Magazine

For millennia, Native Americans have used the cosmos for everything from weather prediction to navigation. Only in the past few decades, though, has Indigenous astronomy gained momentum in modern science, and now it’s making its way into the NPS stargazing movement. National parks are integrating Indigenous astronomy into astro-tourism experiences such as tours and star parties. Rangers from two of the International Dark Sky Association’s (IDA) newest certified dark-sky parks, Mesa Verde NP and Voyageurs NP, are collaborating with local Indigenous communities to give them a platform on which to share their own star stories.

These rangers have been inspired by the work of Annette S. Lee, an award-winning astrophysicist, artist, Lakota of the Ojibwe and Dakota-Lakota communities, and director of the rapidly growing movement Native Skywatchers. In 2007, Lee launched Minnesota-based Native Skywatchers, North America’s first collective Indigenous-led effort to gather and revitalize Native astronomy and earth knowledge through star maps, curricula, and events. In 2020, Native Skywatchers received a pivotal grant from NASA to help them collect and revitalize these stories “at light speed,” Lee says.

Mesa Verde NP has 26 associated tribes in its surrounding communities. Park rangers want to amplify and share knowledge and cultural stories with park visitors, starting with Indigenous astronomy—something Mesa Verde park ranger and Laguna Pueblo member TJ Atsye, the voice behind the park’s popular audio tour, says is a powerful part of the park experience.

Before Mesa Verde pursued IDA dark-sky certification, it sought support from the park’s local Indigenous communities. All were on board. Through a National Park Foundation grant, Spencer Burke, a Mesa Verde Visual Information Specialist, and park ranger Andrew Reagan are spearheading a massive new project: the Mobile Story Lab, a trailer the team will use to collaborate and engage with the park’s nearby communities, particularly Indigenous educators and students. Reagan says the Mobile Story Lab will kick off this September with a weeklong community celebration of the park’s dark-sky certification.

While still in the early planning stages, the long-term Mobile Story Lab goal is to work with teachers at one or several local Native American high schools on “a series of distance-learning programs, taking the trailer down into the community for projects like creating a Pueblo star map with a high-school class,” says Burke, noting Native Skywatchers’ work inspired this star-map idea. The plan is to bring this intel back into the park, educating guests through the words and stories of Pueblo people—just like Atsye’s Mesa Verde audio guide, which launched in the summer of 2020.

Voyageurs NP in upper Minnesota, another new IDA-certified dark-sky park, is also jumping on board. The park is located on Ojibwe land and currently recommends Native Skywatchers’ Ojibwe star maps for visitors. But, like Mesa Verde, they have plans to do much more.

“This is the first summer we’re starting dark-skies programming at Voyageurs, and one of the things we decided from the beginning was that we want to include the Ojibwe community’s star knowledge,” says Erik Ditzler, a Voyageurs NP ranger spearheading the park’s stargazing experiences. While programming is still in its infancy, Ditzler says they’re in talks with several local Ojibwe tribe members for potential Indigenous astro events as soon as this fall.

Indigenous astronomy is gaining momentum in public lands beyond Mesa Verde and Voyageurs. Parks such as Chaco Culture NHP in New Mexico, Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, and Wanuskewin Heritage Park in Saskatchewan have their own cultural stargazing experiences. And Indigenous astronomy isn’t new to the world’s park systems—especially on current NPS land.

During summer solstice 1977, Anna Sofaer, a researcher who studied astronomy of the ancient Pueblo people in America’s Southwest, located the sun dagger site near Fajada Butte, in present-day Chaco Culture NHP. Investigation showed that prehistoric Pueblo people used this millennia-old sun dagger to mark seasonal solstices and equinoxes with a cast shadow on a strategically placed petroglyph spiral.

Renowned American astronomer and NASA adviser Carl Sagan featured Sofaer’s sun dagger findings in his 1980s series Cosmos. From there, and more recently through Native Skywatchers, institutions far and wide now embrace this work.

Archeology E-Gram, distributed via e-mail on a regular basis, includes announcements about news, new publications, training opportunities, national and regional meetings, and other important goings-on related to public archeology in the NPS and other public agencies. Recipients are encouraged to forward Archeology E-Grams to colleagues and relevant mailing lists. The Archeology E-Gram is available on the News and Links page at www.nps.gov/archeology/public/news.htm on the NPS Archeology Program website.

Contact: Karen Mudar at e-mail us to contribute news items and to subscribe.