Investigate These Preservation Resources

The rate of population growth in the Greater Southwest is explosive. For example, Phoenix, Arizona—the heartland of the prehistoric Hohokam culture of irrigation farmers—underwent a 45% population increase in the 1990s. Other major cities have experienced significant population increases, as well. As a result, rural land is being transformed to urban sprawl.

Throughout time, people settle in the same locations, for the same reasons—access to water, arable land, pleasant climate, a strategic location for trade and travel. This means that people today are settling in the places that were population centers in the prehistoric past. Through this process, important archaeological sites are being lost forever.

Protection on a Large Scale

Although the Center is doing what it can to further preservation in urban areas, its most active efforts focus on the remaining rural spaces of the Southwest—areas where it may be ambitious, but not unrealistic, to accomplish archaeological preservation on a large scale.

Preservation Strategies

The Center seeks preservation on the scale of entire valleys, if possible, and uses a diverse set of strategies to preserve archaeological sites and information. Some strategies are designed to protect specific pieces of the archaeological record:

• Site ownership: the Center owns two archaeological sites in southeastern Arizona
• Archaeological conservation easements: the Center holds two easements protecting four sites in southeastern Arizona
• Detailed site mapping: maps are crucial research records if a site is later destroyed
• Photography: good photographs, especially aerials, can preserve key information about a site’s location and its relationship to the landscape

Community-based Archaeology

Specific preservation strategies, though crucial, protect only small snapshots of the past. Ancient peoples lived and left evidence of their lives on a much larger landscape that extends well beyond the highly visible masonry and adobe ruins that most people think of when they think of Southwestern archaeology. Extending protection to include these more subtle traces of the past is the Center’s ultimate preservation goal.

To truly achieve protection on a large scale, we must rely upon the people who own or live on the landscapes today. Through everything it does, the Center is committed to building long-term productive relationships between archaeologists and modern community members based on a spirit of respect, collaboration, and inclusiveness. We call this community-based archaeology: working with local residents as partners to meet their needs and interests, developing opportunities for local participation, and bringing the results of research back to the community.  An example of this effort can be seen in the Center’s National Heritage Area programs.