Professor Mendoza recently applied for a Wireless Technologies in Teaching and Learning Grant through the CSU Monterey Bay/Western Michigan University wireless technologies initiative.  The project's overal design, and technical specifications, were drafted for the proposal in collaboration with Christian Graves, the ASTV's very own network technician.  If funded, the project will make possible the deployment of wireless technologies in archaeology for the Spring 2003 semester.  Project funds will enable the Institute for Archaeological Science, Technology, and Visualization to further its objectives of deploying innovative telecommunications, technical, and multimedia applications in the field of archaeology.  More importantly, students will be given the opportunity to participate on a firsthand basis in a pioneering effort to see through the deployment of wireless and broadband technologies in archaeology.  The Institute should have word on the outcomes of the grant by the end of November 2002.

Institute Director Ruben G. Mendoza recently published a photographic essay on Old Mission San Juan Bautista. Published by the California Missions Foundation, and titled San Juan Bautista: An Archaeologist’s View of an Early California Mission, the book was released during the week of October 21st, 2002, and commemorates the installation of a recent exhibition of Professor Mendoza’s photography featured at the Mexican Heritage Plaza of San Jose, California.  For further information on how to obtain copies of the book -- which includes a detailed mission site map, a diagram of the main altar, detailed captions, and useful information on mission and museum conservation -- please contact the California Missions Foundation at 1007 7^th Street, Suite 302, Sacramento, CA 95814-3407; or, Old Mission San Juan Bautista, Second and Mariposa Streets, P.O. Box 400, San Juan Bautista, CA 95045-0400; Gift Shop phone (831) 623-4528.

The Institute's Director recently authored three contributions for the forthcoming Scribner’s Sons Encyclopedia of Food and Culture (New Your, fall, 2002). The contributions include: “Maize: Natural History of Maize,” “Swidden,” and “Maize as a Food” which was co-authored with World Languages & Cultures student Irene Casas.  Professor Mendoza and Irene Casas reviewed the most up to date archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic evidence for the origins, cultural evolution, and foods identified with maize cultivation.  During the course of this Spring-Summer 2002 research project, Professor Mendoza and Ms. Casas reviewed much new information regarding the origins of maize, and even more about the controversies and issues that surround the ongoing cultural modification of this most remarkable plant.  Among other findings shared by the publishers during the course of research is that maize has recently been hybridized to incorporate the genes of the firefly and as such we may someday have access to glow in the dark popcorn.  By the way, popcorn has been a favorite of the American Indians of Mexico for the past 8,000 years.

During the summer of 2002 the ASTV's Director commenced work on a multimedia project with a major New York publisher centered on the production of a video series in anthropology oriented to the sub-disciplines of archaeology, cultural, and biological anthropology. Professor Mendoza undertook the review of hundreds of individual videocassettes containing raw and preexisting footage of some of the greatest archaeological sites and excavations, and ethnographic and biological anthropology undertakings on record.  As a result, Professor Mendoza has been afforded the opportunity to review spectacular footage of the Lascaux caves of France; Olduvai Gorge in East Africa; Stonehenge, England; and aerial footage of such ancient sites as Teotihuacan, Mexico; among many, many other such sites.  The video series, co-produced and scripted by Professor Mendoza in collaboration with the New York publisher in question, is tentatively scheduled for release in 2003.  Please stay tuned for additional information on the national release of this video series intended to supplement the works of several prominent anthropologists.  Further details about the video series will be made available after May of 2003.

On October 12^th of 2002, Institute Director Ruben G. Mendoza presented the results of a preliminary study of the Winter Solstice meridian at San Juan Bautista before the 31^st Annual Meeting of the Gran Quivira Conference held in Tubac, Arizona.Titled, "Archaeoastronomy, Ritual Space, and the Architectural History of an Early CaliforniaMission," the paper documents Professor Mendoza’s analysis of the Winter Solstice phenomenon and its role in the planning of the architectural alignment of the Old Mission Church of San Juan Bautista.  During the conference, Professor Mendoza met Dr. Mardith K. Schuetz-Miller -- currently working on a book pertaining to the geometry of Spanish colonial architecture in the Americas -- who expressed interest in the study in question.  Professor Mendoza published a brief report of his observations in the December 2001 issue of Archaeology News of Cabrillo College. 

During the course of the past year Old Mission San Juan Bautista has been awarded several significant grants by the California Missions Foundation for the ongoing restoration and conservation of the mission’s art collections.  To date, several colonial era paintings and two bultos or saints from the main altar have been treated.  More recently, a grant was made by the California Missions Foundation for the restoration of the old vestments case located within the Old Mission Museum.  Spanish colonial art conservator Alejandro Reyes-Vizzuett has been retained to see through the conservation treatment of the vestments case in question.  That effort will occupy the months of October and November 2002.  In each instance, Professor Ruben Mendoza of the CSU Monterey Bay Institute of Archaeology submitted the grant proposals in collaboration with Father Edward Fitz-Henry and Sir Richard Josehp Menn on behalf of Old Mission San Juan Bautista or the Carmel Mission.  For examples of recent efforts, please see the "Collections Conservation" portion of this site which is currently in development.

During the summer of 2002 Professor Mendoza, with the assistance of CSUMB archaeology student Amy Gotshalk-Stine, recently visited Dr. Robert Hoover at Mission San Antonio de Padua, California.  The objective was to see through the photography of Dr. Hoover’s ceramics type collection.  Shortly thereafter, Professor Mendoza, in collaboration with CSUMB Social and Behavioral Sciences and multimedia student Malcolm Mejia, undertook the Macromedia Flash-based development of a virtual type collection in mission era ceramic types.  The results of that effort were demonstrated to colleagues at the 31^st Annual Gran Quivira conference in Tubac, Arizona, on October 12^th, 2002.  See Current Projects for further information on the virtual type collection.

At the end of the Spring term of 2001, Dr. Russell Skowronek, the director of the University of Santa Clara archaeology program, established a collaborative accord with Professor Mendoza and other mission project archaeologists, in concert with the Smithsonian Institution’s Materials Research Division.  The results of said accord will result in the neutron activation analysis of some 30 specimens of early mission ceramics from Old Mission San Juan Bautista.  The results of the analysis are expected by the end of the fall 2002 term.  The analysis in question will provide sorely needed data on the actual provenience, or origins, of those clays used to create those ceramics subjected to testing from each of several early California missions.  The analysis will result in a determination that resolves questions about the place of manufacture of many early mission ceramic types from San Juan and other participating mission project sites.

During the summer and fall of 2001, College of William and Mary graduate student Michelle St.Claire undertook the analysis of the faunal collections of Old Mission San Juan Bautista with the collaboration of Professor Mendoza of CSU Monterey Bay.  Ms. St.Claire’s objective is that of the preparation of a Master of Arts thesis focused on the analysis and interpretation of the faunal collections in question.  Preliminary results from this study were presented before the 30^th Annual Meetings of the Gran Quivira Conference that took place at Mission San Juan Capistrano in September 2001.  See Mission Faunal Collections for further information and images.