R. E. Burrillo - Behind the Bears Ears: Exploring the Cultural and Natural Histories of a Sacred Landscape

Praise forBehind the Bears Ears

R. E. Burrillo is an archaeologist who writes nothing like an archaeologistnot stuffy and technical but conversational and enquiring. His deeply personal book traces the thirteen-thousand-year arc of human occupation of the wondrous, contentious place we call Bears Ears. Drawing from his explorations and fieldwork of the regions plateaus and canyons, where past and present coexist, Burrillos love and hope for Bears Ears binds these pages with honest glue.

GREG CHILD, author of Over the Edge

The desert archaeology of R. E. Burillo is alchemical. He conjures empathy for ethnography, transforms soil strata into living stories. Its the trick of poets and magicians, the way the man vanishes colonialist, arms-length fetishizing and categorizing of ancient artifacts. Fierce yet playful, admonishing and ambitious, Behind the Bears Ears is as vast and consuming as the landscape itself, a read in which white America learns what it has failed to grasp by both excavation and exploration. Come to it now, on bended knees with eyes wide open to this nations erasure of all things Indigenous.

AMY IRVINE, author of Air Mail and Desert Cabal

An engagingly personal, well-informed, wide-ranging account of Bears Ears and its archaeology, its ongoing importance to Native peoples, and its future.

STEPHEN H. LEKSON, author of A Study of Southwestern Archaeology

Behind the Bears Ears conveys a deep respect for the place and the people who have lived closest to it. A fine primer for newcomers to the region and an entertaining refresher course for those already embedded in the landscape.

SCOTT THYBONY, author of The Disappearances

EXPLORING THE CULTURAL AND NATURAL HISTORIES OF A SACRED LANDSCAPE

by R. E. Burrillo

TORREY HOUSE PRESS

Salt Lake City Torrey

First Torrey House Press Edition, October 2020

Copyright 2020 by R. E. Burrillo

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written consent of the publisher.

Published by Torrey House Press

Salt Lake City, Utah

www.torreyhouse.org

International Standard Book Number: 978-1-948814-30-0

E-book ISBN: 978-1-948814-31-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019955067

Cover art by Jonathan Bailey

Cover design by Kathleen Metcalf

Interior design by Rachel Buck-Cockayne

Distributed to the trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

Torrey House Press offices in Salt Lake City sit on the homelands of Ute, Goshute, Shoshone, and Paiute nations. Offices in Torrey are in homelands of Paiute, Ute, and Navajo nations.

The author thanks Dr. Bill Lipe, for carefully reviewing the entire manuscript and offering tons of invaluable edits; Drs. Steve Lekson and Marc Toso, for also reviewing the entire manuscript and offering their own suggestions and impressions; and Donna Rex Baker for additional edits and suggestions. Lyle Balenquah, Eric Descheenie, Alastair Bitsi, Ajani Yepa, Honor Keeler, and Angelo Baca provided an immensity of Indigenous perspectives, insights, quotes, and media sensitivity training. Thanks are also due to Tim Peterson and Dr. John Ruple for providing information and guidance about the recent history of the conservation struggle; Rosemary Sucec, for her ethnographic input and review; Dr. Kevin Jones, for his help with the book and for everything else that he does; and Dr. Thomas King, for providing useful guidance and edits vis--vis the cultural resource regulations and practices referenced throughout the book. Jonathan Bailey provided the cover, and was especially helpful in crafting Chapter One. David Roberts and Morgan Sjogren were immensely helpful in crafting Chapters Eleven and Twelve. Thanks also to Aaron, Connie, Greg, Ben, Josh, Amanda and Zak, and Eran for enough shared adventure and wisdom to keep me thoroughly lost for centuries; and to Molly, Chelsea, Shayne, Ryno, Mark and Virginia, Emily, Sasha, and one or two other Flagstaff freaks for keeping the home fires burning.