Rock art in Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon ranges from Archaic to modern. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Utah lays off state archaeologists, anthropologist

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Rock art in Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon ranges from Archaic to modern. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Rock art in Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon ranges from Archaic to modern. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Utah’s top state archaeologists and only physical anthropologist have been laid off in what the state Department of Community and Culture director calls a budget move.

Department chief Michael Hansen tells the Deseret News that budget cuts by the Utah Legislature forced the dismissals of state archaeologist Kevin Jones, assistant state archeologist Ron Rood and physical anthropologist Derinna Kopp.

Hansen says the decision was made within the department, and it’ll save a little more than $154,000.

Rood tells the Salt Lake Tribune he thinks they were dismissed because they stood up for archaeology.

Hansen denies the cuts had to do with a fight over excavation of a site in Draper for a Utah Transit Authority FrontRunner stop.

The antiquities officials say it’s a 3,000-year-old Indian archeological site.

Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-06-22-11 1451GMT

 

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Rock art in Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon ranges from Archaic to modern. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Rock art in Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon ranges from Archaic to modern. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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