Behind the Bears Ears: Exploring the Cultural and Natural Histories of a Sacred Landscape

by R. E. Burrillo

Overview

"Solid history and archaeology combines with an understated call to preserve Bears Ears—all of it, not just a sliver."

—KIRKUS REVIEWS


For more than twelve thousand years, the redrock landscape of southeastern Utah has shaped the lives of everyone who calls it home. R. E. Burrillo takes readers on a journey of discovery through the stories and controversies that make this place so unique, from traces of its earliest inhabitants through its role in shaping the study of archaeology itself—and into the modern battle over its protection.


R. E. BURRILLO is an archaeologist and conservation advocate. His writing has appeared in Archaeology Southwest, Colorado Plateau Advocate, the Salt Lake Tribune, and elsewhere. He splits his time between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Flagstaff, Arizona.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948814300
Publisher:	Torrey House Press
Publication date:	10/27/2020
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	678,356
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

R. E. BURRILLO is an archaeologist and conservation advocate. His writing has appeared in Archaeology Southwest, Colorado Plateau Advocate, the Salt Lake Tribune, and elsewhere. He splits his time between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Flagstaff, Arizona.

Editorial Reviews

"Burrillo makes a commanding debut in a consistently fascinating distillation of the unrivaled mosaic nature of the land's history."

—THE UTAH REVIEW


"Solid history and archaeology combines with an understated call to preserve Bears Ears—all of it, not just a sliver."

—KIRKUS REVIEWS


"Playful, fierce, reverent…an epic story of endurance that reaches back into prehistory and casts a line into the future with the hope that all people can come to know and love this sacred land, and work together to preserve it."

—FOREWORD REVIEWS


"Burrillo describes the area's physical geography and cultural history as well as its meaning and value to those who have been shaped and impacted by the land. For Burrillo, this includes a heartfelt identification with the area's healing power and force of place. This splendidly crafted book will appeal to regional specialists and general readers."

—LIBRARY JOURNAL


"R. E. Burrillo conjures empathy for ethnography, transforms soil strata into living stories. Fierce yet playful, admonishing and ambitious, Behind the Bears Ears is as vast and consuming as the landscape itself."

—AMY IRVINE, author of Air Mail and Desert Cabal


"R. E. Burrillo is an archaeologist who writes nothing like an archaeologist—not stuffy and technical but conversational and enquiring. Drawing from his explorations and fieldwork of the region's plateaus and canyons, his love and hope for Bears Ears binds these pages with honest glue."

—GREG CHILD, author of Over the Edge


"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

From the Publisher

11/01/2020

Bears Ears National Monument, located in southeastern Utah, was established by President Barack Obama in December 2016; President Donald Trump reduced the size of the area by 85 percent in 2017. The ensuing controversy continues. Archaeologist and conservation advocate Burrillo describes the area's physical geography and human cultural history as well as its meaning and value to those who have been shaped and impacted by the land. For Burrillo, this includes a heartfelt identification with the area's healing power and force of place. Divided into 12 chapters, the book follows a time line from the Paleoindian Period to the present day, with extensive details on Pueblo Indians and their lasting influence. The author shows how over time the region was host to Indigenous peoples, colonizers, explorers, and scientists. Chapters are a primer on archaeology basics and are written in a spirited manner that readers of all academic levels can understand and appreciate. The author's goal, successfully achieved, is to weave a narrative that will impart to readers the importance of the Bears Ears and the surrounding region. VERDICT This splendidly crafted book will appeal to regional specialists and general readers.—Patricia Ann Owens, formerly at Illinois Eastern Community Coll., Mt. Carmel

Library Journal

2020-07-28
An archaeologist delivers an in-depth history, stretching thousands of years, of an iconic and embattled Southwestern cultural area.

Archaeologists have long known that the Four Corners area of southeastern Utah is a cultural boundary zone, marking the westernmost extension of the ancient Mesa Verde region. “As archaeology has progressed upward,” writes Burrillo, “from consideration solely of artifacts, to consideration of sites, to consideration of communities, to consideration of culture areas…archaeologists have come to appreciate that no accurate portrayal of human sociocultural anything can be fully understood at less than a regional scale.” The Bears Ears area contains hundreds of sites and has been little explored, and though set aside for federal protection by Barack Obama, Donald Trump has decommissioned most of the vast site in favor of oil and gas development. Burrillo is an able interpreter of the place, locating it within a larger story of how archaeologists do their work, especially when it comes to cultural remains that are very old and thus usually very scarce. “Animal skins and ephemeral huts and whatever food they managed to collect or clobber with simple tools” usually don’t have a long shelf life. This has led to considerable speculation and the rise of interesting if controversial theories, including the thought that Chaco Canyon, also allied with Mesa Verde, was ruled by “a series of mighty queens,” an interpretation that Burrillo calls “pretty cool.” The author points the way toward pit houses, archaeoastronomical sites, petroglyphs, and other features without giving away too much specific information that might guide vandals and artifact hunters to the area. Wisely, he also suggests that ethnographic interpretation be left to Native peoples of the area, whose stories and legends are a form of history: “The deep history of Bears Ears is mostly Indigenous, after all, so the future of its archaeology should be mostly Indigenous as well.”

Solid history and archaeology combines with an understated call to preserve Bears Ears—all of it, not just a sliver.

Kirkus Reviews

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