BLM sidelines science, excludes archaeologists from major conference

Archaeologists working for the Bureau of Land Management were going to give a presentation called “Tough Issues in Land Management Archaeology” at the annual Society for American Archaeology conference until their attendance was not approved by their higher-ups. In the end, 14 BLM scientists stayed home. Their absence is raising questions on whether the U.S. Department of the Interior is again stifling "inconvenient" research. What sorts of things were the archaeologists going to discuss? The federal Antiquities Act, for one. The law, which allows presidents to set aside public land for protection for its natural, scientific, or cultural value, helped create Bears Ears and Grand-Escalante Staircase—two national monuments that Trump's Interior Department has been trying to dismantle. Hmmm...