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What Does SIGHTINGS Have to Do With An Archeological Presentation???

6K views 90 replies 18 participants last post by  traildoc 
#1 · (Edited)
I notice that some of the viewer’s tonight were at the latest RTCA meeting on Thursday night. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't there a section in Travis's archeology presentation that referred to SIGHTINGS or views or something like that? Wasn't there also a very scenic picture of Cathedral Rock in the background and maybe that picture was taken from somewhere close to the Highline trail?

Didn't Travis say he communicates with the tribes regularly and they are concerned and he is concerned that they are concerned because he takes his job very seriously
Can anyone explain why you have a picture of Cathedral under the topic of Sightings in a presentation on archeology?

I look forward to the notes on that presentation it was very interesting, I personally learned a lot. One thing I learned is that Travis said that there are artifacts everywhere in Sedona. He even is concerned that they are in places close to Sedona he has never been to. He has a ton of paper work to do and meeting with the tribe takes up most of his time. When he does meet with the tribe it seems like there concerned pretty regularly.

The next thing I learned is that many native American dwellings have fallen down and are now under the ground a couple inches or so. In the old days the archeologists would dig up a dwelling and find a bunch of important stuff and study it then they would take the artifacts and put them in storage with a bunch of other artifacts. Now they have tons of artifacts in warehouses all over the place and they have to pay storage fees FOREVER.

Consequently, what they do now for the most part (I could be wrong on this part). They leave the site alone and they let it degrade naturally for however long it takes for it to degrade. But if for some reason they get the funding in the future they will head out with a crew of archeologists and dig up more stuff so they can see what 77 Rangers relatives were up to 45 generations ago. I don’t even know what my relatives were up to two generations ago, and it causes me to do a lot of MTBR postings to document my past for future generations to study me.

OK some of the time people go out and build trails close to an archeological site and they do a crummy job of construction and it causes the underground site downstream, that no one knew about to get washed away, so that no one could study those artifacts and see if they were possibly related to 77Ranger. That would be very helpful for him to know and the rest of us would benefit from that knowledge. If all the artifacts that were lost due to the erosion could be found they would have to be studied then stored forever.

It seemed like Travis thinks there is a HUGE cost to storing artifacts, and that digging up archeological sites concerns the tribes because they are concerned that there will be a bad things happen to the site, and the artifacts destined to the warehouse I know I must have had some really great relatives that I know nothing about. It concerns me, that someone might steal some pots and pans that my relatives used to cook their food.

OK I get all that concern, but now that the FS doesn’t have to much more space to store stuff why don’t they take it back to the tribe and give it back to them so they can use the artifacts or they can have it closer to where they live, so they can visit it easier? What they could do is keep the really cool stuff in the warehouse that isn’t broken and take all the not so important broken stuff to where the tribes live. The delivery people could pretend there isn't any real non broken cool stuff back at the warehouse.

When Travis said that now they just leave the stuff buried so it will degrade over the next million years I get the picture that we have enough artifacts in warehouses to last us a long time and it’s a better monetary policy to leave it buried so hopefully looters can’t find it and take it home to store it for free.

Did anyone see the Neanderthal documentary last week on NOVA, that was cool? Does anyone know if there are documentaries like the Neanderthal documentary on all the Sedona artifacts in those warehouses to watch so a simple person like me would get a better understanding why we are storing all that stuff?

Since I now know I am part Neanderthal, I feel much better about why I enjoy meat. It must be an ancestral thing. Ranger 77 are you concerned when you ride in Sedona now that you know there are artifacts all over the place here and you are riding over them constantly? And if you go out to the House Mountain area there could be a ton of stuff that no one knows about out there.

I don’t really think the FS wants to know about it either because then they would have to study it and then store it, but Travis has way too much paper work to really study the stuff these days., so leave it buried for the next generation of archeologists that may have a bigger budget to be able to study and store more stuff. The direction the US budget is going that seems impossible there will ever be the funding for much more storing of artifacts, let alone study it. If you can’t store the stuff after studying it or you can’t study it because you have no budget then I am sorry Travis you are going to have to enjoy doing paperwork.

I wonder if the study of the Human Genome will ever trump Archeology and that actually Travis’s job will someday be replaced with something like that, that doesn’t take a lot of storage? I am curious what the US pays for artifact storage each year? You wonder if the native Americans would rather have the knuckle heads in DC bury all the artifacts that are in the warehouses now then sell the warehouses and take the money and spend it on scholarships for their young generations of native americans to learn their history, so when guys like Ranger 77 die at least they will know their history, so they won’t be like me totally clueless about my relatives.

Look at the negative affect it has had on me.

To be continued when we get the notes or sooner if anyone responds.
 

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#90 ·
^^^ point proven, nothing can derail a TD thread, his like a steam train on a one way track, not even a bomb on the tracks could derail the TD steam train from chuggin along, nothing can deter him from his chosen topic, you gotta admire that about the man..
 
#91 ·
Tone:

Thanks for the post. I have done my best to discuss the scenic Viewshed issue in Sedona as noted in the #4 comment to the RTCA planning process. I am curious if any MTBR viewers looking at this thread have ever heard such a thing. I hope that during the next meeting I can leave comment that:

I don't laud the FS efforts to keep US Citizens off scenic Viewsheds.

If they want to keep non-US Citizens of scenic Viewsheds I could go along with that if the FS adopted all out user built trails that are in jeopardy of being closed due to being located in scenic Viewshed areas.

I would like to hear from others who feel the same way as I do or have the same position as one of the attendees did at the meeting. Hopefully I won't be considered a jerk for taking the position that as a US Citizen I should have the right to view any scenic Viewshed I consider to be a scenic spot.

If that is considered to be disrespectful of 77Rangers ancestors I apologize in advance, but I am not going to change my mind without some logical explaination why I am off base.

This is the Wikipedia definition of scenic Viewshed : Viewshed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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