{"id":57734,"date":"2013-08-20T01:41:39","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T07:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sparsely-financed\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T16:04:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:04:39","slug":"sparsely-financed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sparsely-financed\/","title":{"rendered":"Sparsely financed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A typical ancestral Puebloan family greets visitors to the museum.<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Last year, the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument received $2.40 per acre in federal funding. Mesa Verde National Park, in comparison, obtained more than $30.50 per acre.<\/p>\n

With upwards of 30,000 archaeological sites across a 173,000-acre expanse, the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument attracts some 50,000 visitors annually. Its headquarters, the Anasazi Heritage Center, is a world-class museum, despite operating on a shoestring budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable how little funding places like this receives,\u201d said program director Diane McBride. \u201cPeople tend to think that the government is taking care of things and everything is going to be fine, but that\u2019s just the bare bones.\u201d<\/p>\n

In order for the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and its Anasazi Heritage Center to exist and thrive, McBride said, outside support is essential. One recent donation will help enable schoolchildren to visit the center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve noticed in recent years that fewer schools are able to take their kids on field trips,\u201d said McBride. \u201cThis allows those schools to visit us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Dolores School District virtually eliminated field trips from their budget, and we wanted to help set up a program to transport school kids a short distance to the Anasazi Heritage Center,\u201d Empire Electric Association general manager Neal Stephens explained further.<\/p>\n

Upon hearing the news, Empire\u2019s board of directors made a $1,000 one-time start-up donation to help launch a new Southwest Colorado Cannons Alliance \u201cBucks for Buses\u201d program for educational field trips.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmpire\u2019s board is committed to the communities within our certificated area, and they have identified \u2018education\u2019 as one critical area they support,\u201d said Stephens.<\/p>\n

The Southwest Colorado Canyons Alliance (SCCA) is dedicated solely to helping fund both the center and the monument. Earlier this summer, the SCAA received a larger $20,000 grant from the Conservation Lands Foundation, which helps fund volunteer curating efforts at the Anasazi Heritage Center.<\/p>\n

Less than a fifth of the more than 3.5 million archeological items contained at the Anasazi Heritage Center have been catalogued. Volunteers, who must undergo extensive training and background checks, are needed to help dig through the majority of the collection to properly identify the remaining specimens.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s not catalogued, then it just becomes stuff,\u201d McBride said. \u201cIf it\u2019s catalogued, then archeologist and other scientist can come in to research the items.\u201d<\/p>\n

Archeology is moving away from field excavations, and instead shifting towards existing collections. McBride said shining fresh lights on established collections with new research questions could gleam new information.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot a lot of information is needed from new archeological items,\u201d McBride said. \u201cWhat we need is more information from older collections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dozens of researchers from across the globe trek to the Anasazi Heritage Center annually to examine, for example, whether or not various prehistoric ceramic mugs were used for ceremonial or everyday uses. One fresh face recently studying ancient pottery from Sand Canyon is a graduate student from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking for teaching and learning traditions by studying how the pots were executed,\u201d said Jonathon Schwartz, a self-proclaimed history buff.<\/p>\n

By examining a list of previously researched traits, Schwartz is hoping to discover more about the skill and cognitive ability of ancient painters for his master\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaces like the Anasazi Heritage Center allow people to ask questions about the past and connect to the past,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

While the jury is still out on why ancient civilizations migrated out of the area around the 12th Century, McBride believes additional research on those historic cultures could potentially reveal clues that help to sustain future generations in the Four Corners region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lessons we could learn on how to care for this precious and precarious region,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In addition to preservation efforts, the SCCA grant will also help fund the monument\u2019s cultural site stewardship program. Approximately 50 volunteer site stewards, who must also undertake specific training, are responsible for monitoring some 70 different sites for vandalism, rodent burrowing and natural erosion, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping to upgrade the site stewardship program, which means more sites and volunteers,\u201d said McBride. \u201cWe want to be able to key in and examine what happens to the sites over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local officials from Kinder Morgan have stepped up to assist the Canyons of the Ancient National Monument, recently donating $10,000 and pledging additional funds to conduct a 7,500-acre block archeological survey in the northwest portion of the monument. The survey could unearth even more, McBride said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur resources are locally abundant, but globally scarce,\u201d she added. \u201cWe have more archeological sites per square mile in the Four Corners region than any other place across North America.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Kinder Morgan is currently exploring for carbon dioxide acres in Montezuma County, the company also remains faithful to local residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cKinder Morgan is committed to supporting the communities where we live and work,\u201d said Coy Bryant, manager of operations in Cortez. \u201cMost of our employees are native to the Southwest Colorado area, and as part of this community we feel it is very important to give back.\u201d<\/p>\n

While recent generous gifts have helped, McBride fears future funding woes, citing that federal sequestration could impact both the center and the monument, specifically in regard to filling vacant personnel positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs time goes on, I think we will see less and less funding from the government,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

McBride is hopeful for continued outside financial support, explaining she wants to help promote the \u201cphenomenal resources\u201d located in Montezuma County\u2019s backyard.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely important for local support, because the local community will need to rely more and more on tourism,\u201d she added. \u201cIf local businesses support us, then we will be able to help support them. We\u2019re all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Anasazi Heritage Center was formed to serve as a federal repository for artifacts discovered during the Dolores Archeological Project (DAP). Launched in the late 1970s, the DAP collected some 1.5 million relics prior to the Dolores River being dammed and flooded to create McPhee Reservoir.<\/p>\n

Declared a national monument in 2000, Canyons of the Ancients contains the largest concentration of archaeological sites in the United States, representing ancestral Puebloan and other Native American cultures.<\/p>\n

Cultural sites on the monument include sweat lodges, kivas, shrines and petroglyphs. Reservoirs with stone and earthen dams, including spillways and numerous check dams, also dot the landscape, and stone towers, which may have been sentry posts or astronomical observatories, are found scattered throughout.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocals could take a family vacation right here in their own back yard,\u201d McBride said. \u201cThe Four Corners is the center of the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

tbaker@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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