Towaoc – Messages from the past are important to contemporary society, but scientists who work with those messages seem unable to make their work appear relevant to the public, archaeologist Jim Judge said Friday.
Judge closed a three-day symposium celebrating 100 years of research at Mesa Verde National Park. He called for some second thoughts about why archaeologists work and how they are allowed to work.
Large-scale excavations are increasingly rare, and unheard of at Mesa Verde, because of the strong conservation policy of public land managers.
“Why do we protect and preserve sites at Mesa Verde,” asked Judge, professor emeritus of Fort Lewis College in Durango. “Is this preservation for preservation’s sake, or do we try to understand the past and inform the public, even though it is often apathetic. … I would like to see archaeology shed light on the modern human condition.”
Clues to the future
For roughly 3,000 years, the ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, lived and farmed on mesa tops and in canyons scattered around Four Corners.
By 1250, they had moved into larger, defensible villages in sandstone alcoves high above the floors at Mesa Verde. Around 1300, they suddenly abandoned these elaborate cliff dwellings and migrated south to the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico and to one region of northern Arizona.
The population had exceeded the capacity of a landscape too stricken by drought and deforestation to meet inhabitants’ fuel needs. When the environment could no longer sustain the Anasazi, Judge said, it forced total emigration.
“We need to explain this to people today as a preview of coming attractions,” he said.
It could be the story of the modern Four Corners and other locales, he said, if massive, unchecked development continues – and if people are unwilling to change their lifestyles or lose the delusion that advances in technology will save us from ourselves.
Judge also expressed skepticism of the trend in archaeology to disturb sites as little as possible, especially those on public lands. To preserve cultural resources and to respect the wishes of the ancestral Puebloans’ descendants, researchers increasingly leave ruins and artifacts intact underground. They rely instead on dazzling new methodologies, such as lasers and computer modeling, to extract data remotely or to glean new answers from old finds.
The assumption is that, like noninvasive surgery, minimally invasive archaeology is always preferable to excavation, he said, but the pendulum may have swung too far.
“It’s all well and good to conserve the resource, but resources should be interpreted. If it takes more excavation to extract relevant information, so be it,” he said.
Judge’s comments, a hint of rebelliousness during a fairly staid event, sparked reaction.
William Lipe, an archaeology professor from Washington State University, said the public pays for most archaeological research, and researchers require a wide range of tools to interpret cultural resources.
“The public can legitimately ask for a continuing supply of new discoveries and for new understanding,” Lipe said. “We can talk all we want about noninvasive archaeology, but if you’re going to do research, you have to do research.”
Ricky Lightfoot, director of the private, nonprofit Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, said that it is good to make frugal use of resources.
“But it is a concern if investigators’ access to public lands is continually cut off,” he said.
Need to protect lands
Mesa Verde National Park Superintendent Larry Wiese said researchers may still ask and answer many questions using existing collections.
“I’m always going to come down on the side of preserving and protecting,” Wiese said. “It does not mean we’re not going to dig in the future.”
But Lipe said that much ground is disturbed – and archaeological work permitted – because of federal agency decisions to construct roads or excavate for pipelines.
“If widening a road or putting in a waterline is justification to disturb resources, the public’s interest ought to be at the same level,” Lipe said.
Peter Pino, tribal administrator for the northern New Mexico Zia Pueblo, gave a closing prayer and had the last word.
“Whatever you do with your archaeology, remember we’re still here. We’re descendants of the people, and we are still here. There are spirits still here.”
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
