As recent vandalism incidents across Utah show, respect for the past remains an ongoing issue. So, what can be done to stop people from damaging archaeological sites?
For a national program based at Southern Utah University, the answer is to teach elementary students about the cultures those places represent.
“We can't post policemen at every rock art or rock writing site,” said Project Archaeology director and SUU instructor Samantha Kirkley.
“We need to help kids at a young age figure out why these things are there, and what the meaning is for other people.”
Project Archaeology has created a curriculum with dozens of books and guides, primarily geared toward third through sixth graders. It approaches the scientific study of places and objects left behind by a variety of cultures — ranging from Indigenous tribes to European pioneers in the West and African Americans who were enslaved in the South.
The things that stick most with students, Kirkley said, are the oral histories told from the point of view of a descendant living today. So by the time the lessons get to the rules against vandalism, the students have already had their light bulb moment about why stewarding archaeological sites is everyone’s responsibility.
“You don't have to pound the laws down on them, because they connect to the people,” she said. “And they're asking these questions, ‘Well, why would we take something? Why would we vandalize?’”
Project Archaeology was founded in 1992 by the Bureau of Land Management in Salt Lake City, but the federal agency no longer manages it. The project moved its national headquarters from Montana State University to Southern Utah University in Cedar City in 2022.
It’s had a widespread impact, too.
According to the project’s annual reports, 19,756 educators from at least 35 states have attended its training events as of 2023. Parts of its curriculum have been implemented in thousands of schools and other learning spaces nationwide. While the project hasn’t had success getting its books adopted by the Utah State Board of Education, Kirkley said its materials have been used by Utah teachers.
To ensure its books and workshops represent a full picture of history, the project regularly invites elders from various cultures to help shape them and currently includes three Indigenous members on its advisory board.
One of them is Virgil Johnson, an enrolled member and former chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation along the Utah-Nevada border. His goal is to give the curriculum a Native perspective — an important ingredient he said is often missing from history class.
“Native Americans have always been here. They've been overlooked,” Johnson said. “The Native perspective, Indigenous perspective — it's nowhere near what is projected stereotypically or what Hollywood portrays. So, that story needs to be told.”
Johnson, who spent 35 years as an educator before retiring, has also incorporated the project’s materials into his lesson plans. Now, he’s passing along his knowledge to help more educators and their students understand why artifacts and sites are sacred.
Once people have that awareness, he said, it’s much easier for them to see why looting and grave robbing cause such harm.
“Would it be appropriate if I and several of our tribal members went and dug up the graves at Arlington Cemetery and took some of the medals that the soldiers wore,” Johnson asked. “It’s a similar kind of thing.”
Broader inclusion of Native perspectives in American society has led to some signs of positive change over the years, he said, such as education widening its horizons beyond European viewpoints and museums returning Native remains and objects to tribes.
Still, Johnson sees old forms of discrimination continuing today. One example is the Trump administration’s recent actions to erase pieces of Native history, including the temporary removal of web pages honoring Navajo Code Talkers and Indigenous Iwo Jima veteran Ira Hayes.
“That same old thing is still around. It hasn’t died,” he said. “But we're still here. We're resilient.”
Changes in the national political winds could cloud the project’s future, too. While the program established a nonprofit to help with fundraising years ago, Kirkley said it still relies on some federal grants.
“The grant world is really up in the air right now, and so that is a concern. There is no doubt that is a concern,” she said. “These are really quickly changing times, and we do have a lot of uncertainties.”
Another uncertainty is the future of America’s classrooms, as the Trump administration pushes to dismantle the Department of Education.
Getting school administrators on board with the project’s books has been a challenge too, Kirkley said, because of tight budgets. As teachers face increasing scrutiny about their lessons, there may be even less room for materials that seek to highlight history from different perspectives. For example, she shared the story of a teacher in another state whose administration told her she couldn’t have books on Indigenous history in her classroom library.
Still, the project’s mission remains the same as it has been for more than three decades. Kirkley believes the connections it offers between cultures and time periods can help make America a more unified people.
“There's a lot of people that really want this program to succeed and to get these materials and these stories and these voices into classrooms,” she said. “So, we're just going to keep doing that, regardless of the changing wind.”
