R. E. Burrillo

Born and raised in upstate New York, Ralph “R. E.” Burrillo moved to New Orleans at 18 to continue becoming a writer. Four years later, ready for a change, he took a seasonal job at a lodge in Glacier National Park, and ultimately spent the next five years working for a series of concessionaires in wilderness destinations—including two summers living and working at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, where he discovered and fell in love with the natural and cultural histories of the Colorado Plateau. That discovery led to an undergraduate program at Northern Arizona University, where he graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Anthropology

While in graduate school at University of Utah, Burrillo became more involved in the archaeology of the Bears Ears area, spending most of his free time there while working for the Manti-La Sal National Forest and undertaking his own research. By 2015, he had joined in the growing efforts to conserve Bears Ears. He was subsequently hired by a consortium of groups, including Archaeology Southwest, to help write the technical portion of a lawsuit that would ultimately be brought when an executive order drastically reduced the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument in 2017.

Together with friend and colleague Dr. Benjamin Bellorado, Burrillo edited Archaeology Southwest Magazine Vol. 32, Nos. 1 & 2, “Sacred and Threatened: The Cultural Landscapes of Greater Bears Ears.” He served again in sole capacity for Volume 33, Nos. 1 & 2, “Enigmatic and Endangered: Cultural and Natural Wonders of Greater Grand Staircase-Escalante.” He has written numerous blog posts, public and scholarly articles, and book chapters on the archaeology, anthropology, and history of the Colorado Plateau in the meantime. His book about the history, archaeology, and conservation of the Bears Ears area, titled Behind the Bears Ears: Exploring the Cultural and Natural Histories of a Sacred Landscape, was published by Torrey House Press in 2020 and garned the Editor’s Choice Award in Nonfiction by ForeWord Book Reviews. To this day it is the only mainstream book about the monument that is approved by federal agencies and Tribes to be carried in official visitor centers throughout the region.

He currently resides in Tucson, Arizona.