High Country News

Technology eases access to ancient ruins, for better or worse

A writer uses the Internet and GPS to find secret Ancestral Puebloan dwellings and other wonders on Utah’s Cedar Mesa, home of the country’s highest concentration of archaeological sites.

by Neil LaRubbio, Mar 04, 2013
Pillaging the Past

Craig Childs explores the fine line that separates archeology from grave-robbing in the American Southwest.

by Craig Childs, Apr 28, 2008
Leave it alone

Archaeology is, or at least ought to be, about more than just picking up artifacts to gather dust on the shelves of crowded museum storerooms.

by Jonathan Thompson, Apr 28, 2008
Historic plant cultivation in Northwest native tribes

Lying to rest a dispute over whether tribal reliance on fish meant they did not garden.

by Eric Wagner, Aug 05, 2012
In search of camas, a Native American food staple

Botanist Madrona Murphy traces long-lost edible wild plant gardens cultivated by the Pacific Northwest's Coast Salish.

by Eric Wagner, Aug 15, 2012
Lessons from the mighty Maya

Modern-day Americans could learn a lesson from the collapse of the ancient Mayan civilization.

by John Rember, Dec 11, 2008
The missing puzzle piece

In southwestern Colorado’s Crow Canyon, archaeologists are working with Native Americans to solve the historical mysteries of the Four Corners area.

by Ernest Atencio , Dec 03, 2008
Suburbia blasts through a national monument

A rocky western escarpment and the Petroglyph National Monument have long held back Albuquerque’s sprawl, but now the Volcano Heights development is coming, and a controversial road through the monument may be built

by Hilary watts, Jun 27, 2005
Out of the Four Corners

Susan Ryan, a young archaeologist, has some unusual ideas about why the Anasazi left their homes in the Southwest, 700 years ago

by Craig Childs, Oct 03, 2005
Exodus

The abandonment of the American Southwest by the Anasazi 700 years ago – and the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina today – show that all civilizations are fragile, complex, and ultimately at the mercy of the climate

by Greg Hanscom, Oct 03, 2005