Bandelier National Monument contains thousands of cliff dwellings made from and carved out of volcanic rock in a canyon in northern New Mexico. These were the homes of ancestral puebloan peoples of the desert Southwest. But visitors keep carving graffiti into the walls and ceilings of these dwellings. The National Park Service has a program to address this, but it's underfunded, and there are parks in other areas of the country that don't benefit from the program at all.
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Piece Description
Bandelier National Monument contains thousands of cliff dwellings made from and carved out of volcanic rock in a canyon in northern New Mexico. These were the homes of ancestral puebloan peoples of the desert Southwest. But visitors keep carving graffiti into the walls and ceilings of these dwellings. The National Park Service has a program to address this, but it's underfunded, and there are parks in other areas of the country that don't benefit from the program at all.
Broadcast History
This piece was broadcast on KUNM-FM/Albuquerque, NM, in November 2007.
Transcript
Nats: [Old screen door squeaking open and closed]
Williams: Larry Humetewa steps out of his old stone building office with a couple of buckets. He?s about to head up the canyon trail here in New Mexico?s Bandelier National Monument to deal with graffiti park visitors have left on some of the 800 year old cliff dwellings.
Hume1: We have to bring out our field material, which consists of a couple of different clays, some red tuff, grey tuff, trail sand, tools we call microspatulas?you know, they?re tiny spatulas used for infilling different pigments?
Williams: Humetewa is on the restoration team for Vanishing Treasures, a National Park Service program that has, since the late 1990s, provided extra funding and expertise to help protect and stabilize ancient archeological sites at national parks and monuments across the Southwest. The work ranges from reinforcing old churches to impro...
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Timing and Cues
Suggested host intro: Many of the national monuments and parks across the U.S. contain archaelogical sites that have deep historical significance for the native populations that live around them. This is especially true in the U.S. Southwest, where indigenous cultures are still actively involved in their preservation. Producer Jim Williams brings us one such story from New Mexico.
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