Archeology E-Gram March 2022

Paul DePrey New Superintendent of San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park

Paul DePrey is the new superintendent of San Francisco Maritime NHP. He currently serves as the superintendent of Salem Maritime and Saugus Iron Works national historic sites in Massachusetts.

DePrey joined the NPS in 2001 as the resource manager at Whiskeytown NRA and then at Joshua Tree NP. In 2008 he became superintendent of Pearl Harbor NM and oversaw the construction of a new visitor campus, renovation of the USS Arizona Memorial, and worked with the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i to establish the Honouliuli NHS on the island of O'ahu.

Before joining the NPS, DePrey worked for the USFS as an archeologist in Oregon and Washington.
He earned a MA in anthropology from Western Washington University and a BA in history and anthropology from the University of Maine.

DePrey will begin his new role in late April.

Angie Richman New Superintendent of Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Angie Richman is the new superintendent of Theodore Roosevelt NP. A 23-year veteran of the NPS, Richman currently serves as Director of Interpretation, Education, and Visitor Services for Arches NP and Canyonlands NP. She has served in multiple parks, a regional office and in the Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Program. Her park experience spans ten parks including Chaco Culture NHP and Pecos NHP, Bryce Canyon NP, Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP and Curecanti NRA.

Richman earned a BS in astrophysics with a minor in archeology from the University of New Mexico, with an emphasis on cultural astronomy, specifically the study of how past cultures used the celestial objects in the sky in their daily lives.

She will assume her new role on May 22, 2022.

Ranger Betty Retires!

Betty Reid Soskin, the NPS’ oldest active ranger ever, has retired after a decade and a half of sharing her personal experiences and the efforts of women from diverse backgrounds who worked on the World War II Home Front. Soskin, who celebrated her 100th birthday in September 2021, spent her last day providing an interpretive program to the public and visiting with coworkers at Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front NHP.

In 2011, Betty became a permanent NPS employee and has been leading public programs and sharing her personal remembrances and observations at the park visitor center. Before joining the NPS, Soskin participated in scoping meetings with the City of Richmond and the NPS to develop the general management plan for Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front NHP. She worked with the NPS on a grant funded by PG&E to uncover untold stories of African Americans on the Home Front during WWII, which led to a temporary position working with the NPS at the age of 84.

"Being a primary source in the sharing of that history – my history – and giving shape to a new national park has been exciting and fulfilling,” said Soskin. “It has proven to bring meaning to my final years.”

“The National Park Service is grateful to Ranger Betty for sharing her thoughts and first-person accounts in ways that span across generations,” said Naomi Torres, acting superintendent.

Soskin’s interpretive programs at Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park have illuminated the histories of women, African Americans and other people of color, and her efforts demonstrate how the NPS conveys such history to audiences across the United States.

Guidance for Cultural Resources in Wilderness Released

The NPS Wilderness Division has released guidance in Reference Manual #41, Wilderness Stewardship for considering and managing historic structures and installations in wilderness.

It was developed by an interdisciplinary work group established through the National Wilderness Leadership Council.

The guidance outlines a process to assist parks in managing cultural resources in wilderness. The process is not prescriptive, and clarifies when cultural resources are considered part of “other features of value” quality of wilderness character. It provides a framework for balancing management of those resources with the park’s mandate to manage for all qualities of wilderness character. There are recommendations to guide decisions on the appropriate types and levels of treatments for historic structures and installations in wilderness. The Appendix considers management options within the framework of the Wilderness Act, also useful for decision-making.

This chapter follows after guidance for managing cultural resources in wilderness that the Archeology Program finalized in 2013 in the NPS Archeology resource manual, the NPS Archeology Guide (https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1038/archeology-guide.htm). The Archeology Program will reconcile any discrepancies between the two chapters.

Contact: Roger Semler, Division Chief, Wilderness Stewardship, e-mail us

Updates about Paleontology in National Park Service PEPC

An update to the PEPC system has changed the categories listed on the Environmental Screening Form (ESF). “Paleontological” was removed as a consideration of the “Geologic Features” resource and added as its own resource under the new category “Paleontological.” Parks may add the “Paleontological” resource using the administrative tool for managing the ESF Resource Lookup Table as described in the PEPC QUICK START GUIDE for Park & Region Administrators.
The “Paleontological” resource choice is available on a project ESF if it has been added to the ESF Resource Lookup Table. The old “Geologic Features” is no longer on the ESF Resource Lookup Table and was replaced by a NEW “Geologic Features” that does not include paleontology. If the old “Geologic Features” was used on a project, however, it will still appear on that project, but it is replaced with the NEW “Geologic Features” for new projects.
Contact: Vince Santucci, Paleontology Program Coordinator, [e-mail].

The Federal Archeologist’s Bookshelf: Will be back soon.

GRANTS AND TRAINING

Tribal Consultation Training Available

The Resources Training Program in partnership with the Office of Native American Affairs and CIRCLE are launching a Tribal Consultation webinar series on April 12.

Details and registration information can be found on the Common Learning Portal.

SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC: Archeologists in National Women's History Month Exhibit

The Smithsonian Institution has launched IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit. This exhibit of 120 life-sized 3-D printed statues (!) celebrates contemporary women innovators in science, including archeology, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and features the most statues of real women ever assembled together in one place.

The installation is rooted in a simple truth: seeing is believing. When a girl sees a woman successfully pursuing a STEM career (and having fun), she is more likely to imagine a STEM career for herself.

Women constitute half of the college-educated workforce but make up just twenty-five percent of the STEM industry. This exhibit showcases accomplished and relatable STEM role models, whose stories are proof that gender is no barrier to any career. Selected to share their stories, these diverse innovators are Ambassadors for IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies designed to activate a culture shift among young girls to open their eyes to STEM careers.

Archeologist in the Exhibit: Becca Peixotto

Peixotto’s graduate work focused on historical archeology and resistance landscapes of the Great Dismal Swamp. She focuses on questions about landscapes, material culture, ideas of wilderness, and public engagement with the past. Peixotto has been involved in several other projects, including the Maryland Historic Trust/Archaeology Society of Maryland Biggs Ford project investigating Middle and Late Woodland villages.

With five other women on the Rising Star Expedition, she excavated Homo naledi, a huge discovery, bringing us closer to knowing more about our human origins. Peixotto was Curator of the Origins: Fossils from the Cradle of Humankind exhibit at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, Texas, which featured that discovery.

Archeologist in the Exhibit: Samantha Thi Porter

Thi Porter is a digital archeologist. She employees new technologies like 3D scanning to study artifacts like stone tools. As an Advanced Imaging and Visualization Research Associate at the University of Minnesota, she gets to work on all kinds of projects from making virtual reality tours of archeological sites, to digitizing tree rings to study climate change, to using 3D printing to help artists make sculptures.

To learn more, go to https://ifthenexhibit.org/about/

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