Our Projects

The case for protecting this landscape is clear: The San Pedro—Arizona’s last free-flowing river—and its valley embody the unique and timely story of social and ecological sustainability across more than 12,000 years of cultural and environmental change.

(August 1, 2023)—The Great Bend of the Gila marks an important and unique segment of the river corridor that bridges the ancestral homelands of the O’odham and Piipaash. Movement was an essential dimension to ancestral lifeways along this river, yet the archaeology and history of Indigenous trai...

For the very latest on the campaign to permanently protect the public lands of the Great Bend of the Gila, visit respectgreatbend.org! The Great Bend of the Gila is a fragile stretch of river valley and surrounding lands in the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona. This rural landscape is nestled...

Big Data for Big Questions Archaeology Southwest is pleased to announce that a new joint initiative, cyberSW, has received a $1.7 million award through the National Science Foundation’s RIDIR program (Resource Implementations for Data Intensive Research in the Social Behavioral and Economic Sci...

Banner image courtesy of EcoFlight Archaeology Southwest is part of the Coalition to Protect Greater Chaco, a collaborative effort to find a balanced solution for protecting the Greater Chaco Landscape. Along with Archaeology Southwest, partners include the All Pueblo Council of Governors, the ...

Archaeology Southwest, in partnership with the Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance, is pleased to support the newly designated Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area. This congressional designation honors, preserves, and celebrates the region’s diverse natural resources and cultural contribution...

Archaeology Southwest is pleased to announce that a team of affiliated researchers has earned a prestigious Collaborative Research Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The $175,000 grant will help fund the Lower Gila River Ethnographic and Archaeological Project, an interdisci...

Located at the edge of a shield volcano overlooking the modern town of Springerville, Arizona, the ancient village of Casa Malpais sits on a terrace made of a type of volcanic basalt called Malpais. People built the village over a number of volcanic fissures that provided easily accessible “baseme...

In 2015, the Salmon Pueblo Archaeological Research Collection project (SPARC) was funded through at a National Endowment for the Humanities Collections and Reference grant (PW-228168-15). The goal of this project is to preserve and make accessible incomparable legacy data from the important excava...

Banner image by R. E. Burrillo Archaeology Southwest joins the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and the Friends of Cedar Mesa as we #StandWithBearsEars. Why? The Bears Ears region is not only a singular natural landscape, but also a cultural one. Over millennia, people transformed the rugg...

Land, Water, and Religion during the Gila River Millennium (A.D. 450–1450) In 2017, Archaeology Southwest is beginning a new five-year investigation, which builds on the methods and themes of our Salado Impact investigation, and expands the temporal and geographic focus substantially. Social...

Archaeology Southwest’s new Hands-On Archaeology program connects people of today with daily life in the distant past.