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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 2000)
Construction of 0 Street to finish by next year BY TONY MOSES Parts of O Street in down town Lincoln should become safer and more colorful this fall because of construction efforts by the city of Lincoln. The construction is part of a seven-year plan to rebuild the cityscape on 0 Street between 9th and 16th streets, said Dallas McGee, who works with the City of Lincoln Department of Urban Planning and is managing the project The project includes replac ing damaged and dead trees, repairing sidewalks and adding trash receptacles, bike racks and pedestrian lighting. “It will be lighter and safer at night," McGee said. The last part of the construe tion effort will include the addi tion of plants in the late fall. The plants will add color to 0 Street, McGee said. The city is working on 0 Street between 14th Street and the Centennial Mall. The project will conclude next year with construction between Centennial Mall and 16th Street. McGee said he anticipated the current construction efforts to be finished by October. Until then, O Street will con tinue to have temporary lane closings, but will be opened for football games, McGee said. Matt Hilker, an employee at Yiayia’s Pizza, said business was unaffected by the construction when it was in front of the restaurant. “It seems that we were almost busier,” Hilker said. During the construction, the city placed wooden boards between the outside beer gar den and the construction, he said. The construction also ~ allowed Yiayia’s Pizza to extend their beer garden by three feet, Hilker said. Construction lasted four weeks outside ofYiayia’s, though the city anticipated it would only take two weeks, Hilker said. The delay was probably because of the weather, Hilker said. He said he was pleased with the way the city handled the inconvenience. “They were very accommo dating," Hilker said. Tests on Anasazi artifacts show proof of cannibalism ■Traces of human protein were found in experiments on the pots and human bones found in Colorado. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Piles of human bones burned and boiled, smashed and scraped. Cooking pots smeared with blood. A few years ago, anthropolo gists in the American Southwest uncovered the grisly remains of what appeared to be an ancient cannibal feast, but they lacked the biological proof - until now. Laboratory tests on some of the artifacts, including a piece of human excrement, have revealed traces of a human pro tein that scientists say is the first direct evidence of cannibalism among the Anasazi, whose empire stretched into present day Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. “This proves they put the meat in their mouths,” said Richard Marlar, a molecular biologist at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver who devel oped the biochemical tests to detect the protein. “If you didn’t eat human beings, this protein would not show up.” The excavation site, consist ing of three collapsed pit dwellings nicknamed Cowboy Wash near Dolores, Colo., was occupied about 1150 A.D. It was abandoned after seven people were butchered there. The findings were published in Thursday's issue of the jour nal Nature. Other anthropologists said the protein evidence is convinc ing. However, it doesn’t explain exactly who committed the can nibalism or why. . Nor does it demonstrate that the Anasazi commonly ate their own, whether for nourishment or in a religious ritual. “I doubt it was a routine thing at all in the culture of the early pueblo people, any more than it was routine in any other culture,” said anthropologist William Lipe of Washington State University. Among modern-day Indians of the Southwest, leaders of the Hopi, Zuni and other tribes have been especially critical of canni balism research. But Terry Knight, a Ute Mountain Ute tribal leader who supervised the excavation, said of the findings: “Like any other civilization, there were good, productive people, and there were bad people.” Knight said he hopes the evi dence of cannibalism will force anthropologists to revise their thinking about the Anasazi cul ture. He said ancient Indian cul ture is too often treated in sim plistic terms when it was in real ity complex, with many differ ent tribes. Cowboy Wash was one of about 10 Anasazi homesteads in the Four Comers region. Today’s inhabitants, the Utes, commis sioned archaeologists to con duct a scientific survey before installing an irrigation system. Even without the specter of cannibalism, the Anasazi are a mysterious lost culture. They built an elaborate network of roads and ceremonial centers throughout the Southwest after 700A.D. that were keenly orient ed to the heavens. Severe drought helped to disperse the society by 1300 A.D. Forty miles east of Cowboy Wash stands Mesa Verde, now an elaborate ghost city. But most Anasazi lived in hardscrabble settlements, grow ing com and hunting game. The pit dwellings at Cowboy Wash appear to have been heav ily used for many years, then suddenly abandoned. They contained pots, grind ing stones, jewelry and other valuables. “I doubt it was a routine thing at all in the culture of the early pueblo people, anymore than it was routine in any other culture." William Lipe Washington State University anthropologist In the ruins, researchers also found seven dismembered skeletons in 1994. The bones had been stripped of their flesh, then roasted and cracked for their fatty marrow. Skulls were scorched and cracked open for their brains. In the center of one cooking hearth was found a coprolite, or piece of dried feces. The scene suggested a grue some butchering, but critics complained the evidence was circumstantial. In 1997, Marlar offered to find biochemical proof. In a series of tests, he deter mined that both the coprolite and residue on cooking pots contained human myoglobin. It is a protein that picks up oxygen from the bloodstream and car ries it into the muscle cells. Myoglobin is found in flesh, not in most organs or vessels. In mammals, the myoglobin of each species has its own chemi cal fingerprint. Marlar failed to find the myoglobin for deer, rabbit and other local game in the same samples. As a comparison, he did not detect human myoglobin in coprolites and other artifacts found at other Anasazi sites from the same period. “All we have found from the Cowboy Wash samples is human myoglobin - no other species,” Marlar said. “They had a human meat meal.” FREE Nokia 252 Phone! %*FREE a Nokia 252 'FREE Weekend Calling For Life! * FOUR State Local Calling Area * RATE Plans Starting as low * FREE Nokia 252 * FREE Case & Cigarette Lighter Adapte hi Hot Oojott % cftooto prom * some restriction apply CELEBRATING OKIA DAYS! ecials at these locations ONLY -iioer Saver Russ’s Market 27* and Pine Lake Rd 70* and Van Dorn Super Saver Russ’s Market 27* and Cornhusker Hwy 33ra and Hwy 2 Nebraska Bookstore and Q Streets Super Saver 48m and O Street Today thru Sunday! Bring in this ad and we will pay your first month of service! We Will Beat Any Competitors Prices! CELLULARONE OFF all accessories plus FREE NOKIA GIVEAWAYS _ Nokia 5120 ^$49.99 ! Hardt Communications Premiere Authored Dealer Carrie 5804705 Doug 890-0215 Troy 310-3559 Jerod 580-5920 Kathy 310-3559 Jenni 890-5366 Tanner 890-6095 Sue 890-8500 Rob 580-0062 Cassie 310-1920 Joe 890-9164 Heather 890-0990 Checks prepare for Net ■The program that will allow students to sign up for senior checks on the Internet is gradually becoming available. BY GEORGE GRFEN The University of Nebraska Lincoln is trying to make the lives of graduating seniors a lit tle easier. UNL is gradually imple menting a computer program that lets students sign up for a senior check over the Internet, said Earl Hawkey, director of registration and records. A senior check statement tells seniors which classes they have left to take to graduate, Hawkey said. UNL purchased the soft ware necessary to run the check program several years ago, said Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs James Griesen. The program is not yet com pletely implemented because of the wide variety of majors and options within majors available to students, Hawkey said. Putting all of the require ments and codes into the pro gram is time consuming and difficult, Griesen said. This fall advisers in the College of Business Administration and the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources are trying out the program, Hawkey said. Advisers will use the pro gram when studehts come to them with questions, he said. The Teachers College will start using the system in late November or early December, followed by the College of Engineering and Technology and the College of Arts and Sciences, Hawkey said. "We are still in a shake-out period with the program,” Hawkey said. Administrators don't want to make the program available to students until all of the prob lems are solved and students receive “100 percent accurate information,” Hawkey said. So many students have dif ferent situations that some could receive false information, he said. Currently, students fill out a request for a senior check with Registration and Records. Hawkey said he did not know when the program will be available to students. “We are taking it slow because we want it completely correct," he said. The program is also difficult to implement because it requires a lot of effort by the individual colleges that use the programs, Griesen said. The University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo., uses the pro gram, he said. Griesen said that when he visited CU last spring, the uni versity was close to removing the program from the campus because it was providing mis leading information. Other colleges ha$e been though theses same trial stages, Hawkey said. Griesen said he believes that the program needs an assistance system to continual ly make changes and updates. “There is all kinds of fine tuning in the system,” he said. 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