Engaging Local Pueblo Youth to Preserve Ancestral Pueblo Sites at Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of the Eastern Jemez Mountain Range and the Pajarito Plateau: Interagency Collaboration for Management of Cultural Landscapes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Bandelier National Monument lies on the Pajarito Plateau where the Tewa, Keres, and Zuni Puebloan ancestors chose to reside. These people modified, then utilized naturally eroded recesses in welded volcanic ash to create what archaeologists term cavates. Ancestral Puebloans also used the soft volcanic tuff to shape the building blocks for their homes. Today these archaeological sites are managed by diverse organizations and federal agencies that preserve and study these sites. In order to preserve Ancestral Puebloan sites, Bandelier National Monument partnered with Rocky Mountain Youth Corps to establish the Bandelier Preservation Corps (BPC) in 2015. The BPC consists of local Pueblo youth, as well as youth from surrounding communities, to help preserve these ancestral sites. The BPC allows for Pueblo youth to gain hands-on interaction with the architecture of their ancestors while being guided by experienced Pueblo community members who work for the National Park Service. The BPC works together to stabilize, repoint, and record data on standing architecture. This program has been very successful in its ability to maintain the archaeological sites of Bandelier National Monument and mobilize youth to engage in preservation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeologies of the Eastern Jemez Mountain Range and the Pajarito Plateau: Interagency Collaboration for Management of Cultural Landscapes   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25659