*July 2018 Archeology E-Gram*
*NPS NEWS*
*Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument makes Historical Photographs
Available*
Historic images in the Little Bighorn Battlefield NM museum and archival
collections are among the most frequently requested items from the park. Now,
the park is making over 1000 19th century historical images available to
the public to view, search, and download via the NP Gallery Digital Image
Archive. The images include 19th century photos from the Custer Collection,
Bowen Collection, 7th Cavalry Collection, Marquis Collection, Camp
Collection, and more.
The NPGallery platform will allow the park to continue to add images and
text to the Digital Archive as time and funding allow. This project was the
result of many years of work and dedication by numerous offices and
individuals, and funding from multiple projects, friends groups, and grants.
To access the Little Bighorn Battlefield NM collection, go to
*http://npgallery.nps.gov/LIBI
<http://npgallery.nps.gov/LIBI>*.
*Contact:* Staffan Peterson, Chief, Integrated Resource Management, Little
Bighorn Battlefield NM
*Historic Jamestowne Battling Sea Level Rise*
A study group of experts from USGS, NPS, and Jamestown Rediscovery is using
high-tech tools to monitor ground water to combat and react to sea level
rise at Historic Jamestowne. The group is trying to see how sea level rise
impacts the island and its historic artifacts.
USGS placed a series of wells at five different sites on the island to
monitor the water quality. Results indicate that water around the island is
salty and acidic. As the water seeps into adjacent soils, it can cause
historic artifacts to deteriorate more quickly, making recovery difficult.
The three-year study is near its end; researchers have already submitted a
request for more funding.
*By Niko Clemmons, **WVEC-TV*
*Trio Accused of Vandalism at Missions Face Federal Charge*
Three people accused of defacing San Antonio Missions NHS Missions San Juan
and San José last month now are facing federal charges. A federal grand
jury indicted Gabriella Petra Fritz, Sydney Elizabeth Faris, and Andres
Castaneda, on one count each of depredation of government property,
according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Texas.
The indictment alleges that between June 21 and 22, the three willfully
used spray paint to deface the Visitor’s Center, which is federal property,
at Mission San José and signage, resulting in more than $1,000 of damage.
The San Antonio Police Department and the National Park Service identified
the three as suspects after authorities released video June 22 showing
vandals using spray paint to deface the historic church.
*By Jacob Beltran, my San Antonio*
*Court Decision Stands in Wilderness Watch vs. Creachbaum*
Trail shelters and a cabin in Olympic Wilderness have standing and will
remain standing, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The 9th
Circuit has rejected a legal challenge by Montana-based Wilderness Watch,
which sued to force removal of four shelters and a cabin as incompatible
with provisions of the Wilderness Act, which protects lands "untrammeled by
man."
The protected structures, including the Canyon Creek Shelter, above Sol Duc
falls, were built in the 1930's by a Civilian Conservation Corps crew. The
Elk Lake Shelter, 15 miles up the Hoh River trail, has offered refuge to
Mt. Olympus climbers for 91 years. The present shelter was erected by the
National Park Service in 1963. Even more remote is the Wilder Shelter, 21
miles up the Elwha River.
This important ruling acknowledges that cultural resources can further the
goals of the Wilderness Act, and that the NPS should be accorded deference
to manage them appropriately.
*FEDERAL NEWS*
*Department of the Interior Ignores Archeological Resources in
Decision-Making*
In a quest to shrink national monuments last year, senior Interior
Department officials dismissed evidence that these public sites boosted
tourism and spurred archaeological discoveries, according to documents the
department released this month and retracted a day later.
Thousands of pages of e-mail correspondence chart how Interior Secretary
Ryan Zinke and his aides instead tailored their survey of protected
sites to emphasize the value of logging, ranching and energy development
that would be unlocked if they were not designated national monuments.
Comments the department’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officers made
in the documents show that they sought to keep some of the references out
of the public eye because they were “revealing [the] strategy” behind the
review.
In April 2018, President Trump signed an executive order instructing Zinke
to review 27 national monuments established over 21 years, arguing that his
predecessors had overstepped their authority in placing these large sites
off limits to development.
The executive order started a process that significantly reduced two of
Utah’s largest national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand
Staircase-Escalante, and has not ruled out altering others.
The new documents show that as Zinke conducted his four-month review,
Interior officials rejected material that would justify keeping protections
in place and sought out evidence that could buttress the case for
unraveling them.
These redactions came to light because Interior’s FOIA office sent
documents to journalists and advocacy groups on July 16 that it later
removed online. “It appears that we inadvertently posted an incorrect
version of the files for the most recent National Monuments production,”
officials wrote July 17. “We are requesting that if you downloaded the
files already to please delete those versions.”
P. David Polly, president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, said in
an interview that there’s specific funding that comes with a monument
designation, which BLM itself identified as one of the reasons behind the
“increase” in archaeological finds. Polly added that the funding also
accounts for why the number of paleontological finds in Grand
Staircase-Escalante has risen from a few hundred before 1996 to several
thousand. “This funding will disappear for the areas that are no longer in
the monument,” he said.
*From story by **Juliet Eilperin
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/juliet-eilperin/>, Washington Post*
*GRANTS AND TRAINING*
None reported this month.
*SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC:* *Bureau of Land Management Accidentally Releases
Site Locations*
Federal officials mistakenly published confidential information on
locations and descriptions of about 900 cliff dwellings, spiritual
structures, rock art panels and other Native American antiquities in Utah.
The BLM posted a 77-page report online that included unique identifiers for
artifacts as it prepared to auction the most archaeologically rich lands
ever offered for industrial use.
The document appeared on a BLM web page before the March oil and
gas lease of 51,482 acres in a remote desert region of southeastern Utah.
The BLM removed it and then reposted it with the detailed site descriptions
blacked out. The report appeared online the last weekend in February and
remained there for at least a few days – long enough for a state agency in
Utah to download it and realize it violated the state’s privacy
restrictions. The report’s appearance online unnerved Native Americans, and
scientists who provided the BLM with archeological reports with the
understanding that they would be kept secret.
In response to questions about how the confidential information ended up
online, the BLM did not explain why the report was published. Attorneys
representing Native American tribes declined to comment, citing ongoing
negotiations with federal agencies on “delicate matters on a number of
fronts.”
The BLM’s release of confidential information occurred as its understaffed
field offices are under strain from an Executive Order issued by President
Donald Trump last year to relieve the energy industry of “regulatory
burdens.” A directive from the Department of Interior urged these offices
to speed auctions of public lands by truncating scientific review and
comment periods.
The 43 parcels in Utah that the BLM auctioned to oil and gas companies
contain 1,282 archaeological sites and likely hundreds of undiscovered
ones. Of those, 899 were identified by a unique combination of numbers and
letters known as a “Smithsonian trinomial,” which catalogs each relic or
building by the state and county where it is located.
The mistakenly released report didn’t include global positioning
coordinates for those sites, but it did list them by parcel numbers that
corresponded with maps published on the BLM’s website. It also contained
proper names of archaeological sites, types of relics, numbers of sites on
each parcel and the tribes that might have built them, which indicates
their age.
The release of the report is the latest controversy in an intensifying
debate about how to protect the nation’s heritage as development and
tourism explode across the West. The BLM – which manages nearly 950 million
surface and subsurface acres, primarily in 12 Western states – oversees
leasing land to oil and gas companies. It’s required to ensure federal
lands are available for multiple uses while also protecting cultural
resources. These two responsibilities collided in the March 20 auction of
lands in Utah.
The administration’s expedited move to open public lands to energy
exploration puts at risk scores of ancient buildings, vessels, petroglyphs
and roads. An analysis of hundreds of pages of federal documents, memos,
protest letters and interviews showed the BLM expedited lease sales without
analyzing all available cultural resource data.
Under its regulations, the BLM must make a “reasonable and good faith
effort” to identify historic properties with the assistance of consulting
parties and tribes, who say keeping the information they provide secret is
paramount to protecting these sites. “The internet has changed everything –
now there is widespread information on sites that were completely unknown
two or three years ago,” said Diane Orr, co-chairman of the conservation
committee for the Utah Rock Art Research Association, a consulting party on
the BLM lease sale in Utah.
States protect their cultural resources differently. Utah tightly restricts
access. Only qualified archaeologists can access these computer systems,
after receiving credentials and signing a user’s agreement with Utah’s
State Historic Preservation Office. “The law would prohibit publicly
publishing site locations and site names,” said Laura Peterson, a staff
attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which was a consulting
party on the March sale. Her organization and several other parties signed
a memorandum of understanding with the BLM to protect such information.
In a later statement, BLM officials stated that the posting of the initial
report was intentional and “required by law.” The redacted report was
posted as a courtesy after archeology and American Indian groups protested.
Several auctioned parcels are located near Hovenweep and Canyons of the
Ancients national monuments. Inventories exist for only 2 percent to 55
percent of the parcels the BLM auctioned in Utah’s Grand and San Juan
counties, where the parcels are located. About 1,000 new archaeological
sites were discovered in fiscal year 2017 alone on land the BLM oversees in
Utah.
From story by Jennifer Oldham, Reveal
*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
<http://www.nps.gov/archeology/public/news.htm_> on the NPS Archeology
Program website.
*Contact*: Karen Mudar at [log in to unmask] to contribute news items and
to subscribe.
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