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.”
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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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