Nat’aah Nahane’ Bina’ji O’hoo’ah: Diné Archaeologists & Navajo Archaeology in the 21st Century

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Nat’aah Nahane’ Bina’ji O’hoo’ah: Diné Archaeologists & Navajo Archaeology in the 21st Century," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Navajo people have been directly involved in archaeology since Richard Wetherill hired his first excavation workers at Chaco Canyon in the late 1800s. More than a century later, however, it's clear that relatively few studies have attempted to incorporate the Navajo archaeological record into broader anthro-historical discussions. Indeed, "mainstream" Puebloan-focused Southwestern archaeology has long promoted a marginalized view of Navajo culture/history with little input from Diné people themselves. Developing archaeological projects that look beyond acculturation and migration in order to highlight the complexity of Diné society prior to and following the onset of Euro-American colonialism in the Southwest is the only way to correct this imbalance. As this session demonstrates, such a movement is underway. Where once non-Native archaeologists working within CRM frameworks conducted the majority of Navajo-focused research, a new generation of Diné archaeologists are now conducting their own studies. Drawing upon diverse methodological and theoretical influences, these projects combine earlier research with traditional Diné knowledge and new archaeological data to explore a variety of questions. These papers showcase current research by Diné archaeologists who are committed to understanding past Navajo experiences in the Southwest and extracting lessons relevant to the continuation of Diné culture in the 21st century.