THE RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT CROW CANYON
Archaeology for the Twenty-First Century
An interdisciplinary network of scholars whose collaborative approach to research is especially suited to addressing big questions with large and complex datasets.
Established in 2014 by the Crow Canyon Board of Trustees, the Research Institute expands Crow Canyon’s capacity in all three of its mission areas: long-term archaeological research, education about humans past and present, and research partnerships with Native Americans. As part of Crow Canyon, researchers at the Institute can leverage more than three decades of archaeological inquiry—and an extensive database—in support of sustained research leading to a better understanding of the human past and a clearer vision of society’s path forward.
Projects conducted under the aegis of the Institute address a wide variety of interrelated issues relevant not only to archaeologists but to educators, policy makers, advocacy groups, and Indigenous peoples:
Human-environment relationships
What effect do people have on the natural environment? How does a changing environment affect human societies? An understanding of how humans have responded to environmental change in the past can inform discussions of environmental policy today.
Economic systems
Studies of economic performance in ancient societies worldwide provide valuable historical and cross-cultural perspectives on long-term economic sustainability and unsustainability.
Social complexity
Human societies have grown exponentially in scale and complexity over the past 10,000 years. Institute studies help identify the factors that shape the development human societies and create an appreciation for human cultural diversity. On a planet that today is inhabited by more than 7 billion people, the past can teach us about the social frameworks that are needed to manage future growth.
Indigenous archaeology
Archaeology conducted by and in collaboration with Indigenous people promotes respect for different cultures, traditional knowledge, and the full range of creative solutions that different peoples have brought to bear on problems common to all societies, past and present. The Institute will facilitate these collaborative endeavors and support the work of Indigenous scholars who seek to develop an archaeology based on Indigenous perspectives.
Cultural and scientific literacy
As a social science that integrates the “hard” sciences into its practice, archaeology is an excellent way for students to acquire basic cultural and scientific literacy—and to learn how to apply those skills in real life.
The ultimate goal of the Institute is to offer research-based solutions to present-day challenges. The potential exists for archaeology—long regarded as simply the study of antiquity—to provide fresh perspectives on some of the most intransigent, and controversial, issues of our time.
Data-driven archaeology
Researchers at Crow Canyon are leaders in quantitative archaeology, computational and statistical modeling, and environmental reconstruction.
Broadening impacts
We are creating learning tools that blur the line between research and education, inviting the public to participate in building new, relevant understandings of the past.
Reproducible research
Scholarly work should be transparent, documented, and reproducible—characteristics of all Research Institute projects. Check out our code repositories on GitHub.
The Research Institute House
Visiting researchers at Crow Canyon can choose to stay at the Research Institute house, less than a mile from the Crow Canyon campus in rural Colorado. The house provides a relaxing environment for research, a substantial research library (in addition to the research library at Crow Canyon), and laboratory space. Researchers at the Institute house can enjoy a direct connection to Crow Canyon’s high-speed internet and research database.