Guns, Snakes, and Spirit Animals

Real-life dramas lurk behind the more familiar formal and structured content of archaeological literature. These untold tales reveal the personal experiences of the authors and the events encountered in the course of many decades of archaeological field work and travels throughout the Northern Plains, the American Southwest, and Mesoamerica. Some of them describe threatening encounters between landowners, stakeholders, and a public unsympathetic to archaeological pursuits. Close calls and drug-runners add to the potential risk of visiting rock art sites near the US/Mexican border. Other accounts explore the challenges of conducting rock art field work in adverse and demanding physical and social contexts. While these personal adventures are often shared between archaeologists over a beer, at parties and conferences, or around the campfire, they are seldom written down. Here are a few of these stories.