Title: Challenges between natural conservation and the archaeological patrimony on the Sonoran Desert
Conveners: Elisa Villalpando y Júpiter Martínez (INAH); Carlos Figueroa (UABC)
Participants: Horacio González, Sula Vanderplank, Cathy M. Marlett, Eric García, Alejandra Gómez Valencia, Xavier López Medellín, Salvador Galindo Bect, Carmen Gutiérrez Uribe, Mike Wilken-Robertson, Alan Hatcher, Tom Bowen, Carloyn O’Meara, Norma A. Meza
Summary
In this session it was recognized the value of the Sonoran Desert’s archaeological heritage as the main evidence for the last millennia of coastal communities’ cultural continuity in the region. Shell-middens as archaeological sites are emphasized as areas where it is possible to study the ancient history of coastal environments.
To comprehensively understand the Gulf of California, it is necessary to conceive the environment with its historic depth where man was as a fundamental part of it preservation or transformation.
It was stated that considering man only as an anthropic factor prorogues by consequence an incomplete picture of the Sonoran Desert; therefore proposal of multi-disciplinary projects to solve common problems, having conservation as one of its main objectives, could enable funding from different instances and could have better results in the preservation of the natural and cultural heritage.
