Posted on 01/29/2007 4:50:15 PM PST by ApplegateRanch
Part of archaeological site destroyed in Albuquerque
ALBUQUERQUE Crews working on a waterline for a new high school on Albuquerque's west side have destroyed part of an archaeological site.
A University of New Mexico archaeologist, Bruce Huckell, says the site is possibly up to ten-thousand-900 years old.
He says the site was the first proof the presence of the Folsom culture in the Albuquerque basin.
Pieces of tools, teeth and bone fragments have been found at the site, which was discovered by Huckell eight years ago.
He says Albuquerque's public school district realized part of the site was damaged in August when the waterline work started.
Huckell says the district had carefully located the school around the site.
But he says the district didn't think about the location of the utilities for the school.
"Someone" put an unauthorized dirt road over Site A. They put a water pipe-line through Site B. These sites were clearly marked, notification made, professors marked them, and yet these ~10,000 year old sites are ruined and the artifacts, destroyed.
Alb Public Schools denies making the dirt road. Contractors won't admit to it either. But....APS says it's a 'wonderful opportunity' to put the knowledge that the site WAS there in the curriculum for the future students!
Maxwell Museum of Anthropology on the UNM campus had given APS maps of the sites. These sites were clearly marked, notification made, professors marked them.
Here's one for you.
Bottom line? Turn Mesa Verde into condos for all I care.
They have had eight years to excavate the site, what was he on the 50 year plan?
I agree. If we preserve all of the past, there is no present or future.
Excavation for new sites will always turn up these things. They found Peter's tomb, they think, under the Vatican. The pope said, "He really was here. Wow."
I suggest digging under all the prominent buildings in America. People have a way of building over older cities.
Which means that it is also possibly ten years old.
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"Cave condos at Mesa Verde" What a concept.
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