Kipp Ruin: Exhibit for the Visually Impaired

http://www.nmsu.edu/~ucomm/Releases/2009/april/visuallyimpaired_exhibit.htm


NMSU student creates exhibit for the visually impaired
A project that was in the works for more than three years is now an exhibit that not only depicts the arts of the Mogollon culture but provides a display that also can be enjoyed by those who are visually impaired.
Amanda Stroud, a New Mexico State University student studying anthropology, created the University Museum exhibit entitled “Kipp Ruin.”
“I came up with the idea for the exhibit while in a museum studies class. A display like this hasn’t been done in the University Museum in 40 years,” Stroud said.
Stroud studied the Mogollon site eight miles east of Deming called Kipp Ruin. Stroud explained the site, which dates from 1300 to 1450, was the location from which the Kipp Ruin people vanished and includes 20 pueblo rooms where pottery and tools are found.
The exhibit consists of four stations, all of which have brailed text. Each station was designed to provide a hands-on experience for visitors...

"We applaud our fellow grad colleague on such a unique idea. I recall our round-table discussions about sensory perception and how visually impaired students would be able to interact with the display. I seem to recall something about lemons, strawberries, and bananas, or was it bubble-gum?"--aggie castronuevo

Santa Teresa Archaeological Field School

http://www.alamogordonews.com/news/ci_12094144

This is an interesting project, not only because it is behind a Tyson Chicken Factory (oh my, the jokes!), but it is being excavated from within a building which formerly housed an old museum.

--aggie castronuevo johann

Archy Digs

I found an Archaeology Group on Library Thing, and the thread is discussing everyone's experience on archy digs, if any.

I am an archaeology graduate student at New Mexico State University. My experiences include a survey in the Saddle Mountains of eastern Washington, volunteered with the Mud Bay Field School near Olympia, and have worked on the excavation of the Wenas Mammoth near Selah (2 summers). The Wenas dig was under desert conditions--lots of fine sandy loess that destroyed two pairs of glasses, my camera, and helped to bury my favorite pair of boots! But I managed to locate and excavate two mammoth rib bone fragments (they are very fragmented due to the tentative age of 16,000 years), a possible prehistoric bison vertabrae, and parts of a kangaroo rat and 2 pocket gophers found at the bottom of a burrow. This dig also became archaeological in 2006 with the discovery of the heat-treated medial portion of a human modified stone flake found in the same excavation unit as mammoth and bison elements. Pretty cool stuff! This dig continues July-August of 2007--they are open to volunteers, and the site is open to visitors, as well.-aggie