Archaeological Society of New Mexico Meetings:

After my talk on the archaeology of the Estancia Basin on Saturday morning had a BBQ lunch and listened to papers all afternoon. The banquet was pretty good and I enjoyed the Bandelier lecture. But the highlight of the conference was the Sunday morning field trip to La Salina....

Despite the fact I have now worked in the basin for years I have never been to La Salina, which through some trick of the upwelling groundwater is the only sub-basin of the 80 or so which produces pretty pure sodium chloride. The playa has historically been used as a commercial source of salt and extensively used prehistorically. I was able to actually collect some for table salt at home. It is a pretty cool thing to see.

La Salina also has the distinction of being the only land grant granted by the Republic of Texas after they claimed New Mexico still in existence. The ownership was then actually recognized by the congress of the United States in a Private Bill.