Whither wilderness? Collaborative archaeology and the place of people in Grand Teton ecology

2026 Harlow Summer Seminar Series: July 9, 2026

Talk Title: Whither wilderness? Collaborative archaeology and the place of people in Grand Teton ecology
Speakers: Dr. Randy Haas, Associate Professor in the University of Wyoming Department of Anthropology with contributions from Claudia Celia, Colin King, Xavier Littlehead, Michael Thom, JP Schubert, and James Trosper
Time: BBQ at 5:30pm followed by the seminar at 6:30pm (Mountain time)
Location: UW Research Institute at AMK Ranch

$10.00 suggested donation for attending the event. The event is open to the public and reservations are not required.

Attend Virtually: The talk will also be live on Zoom. The zoom link will be made available through our email list. If you haven’t already, join our mailing list!

Abstract

Grand Teton National Park is world famous for its wilderness—an untrammeled natural ecosystem, teaming with Pleistocene megafauna on a vast sage steppe and the slopes of rugged snow-capped mountains. Despite this common characterization, archaeology—the science of humanity's past—shows that Native Americans have been part of this ecosystem for the entirety of the Holocene Epoch, spanning nearly 13,000 years. This talk explores what we know about Grand Teton National Park's deep-time human demography and how our UW team is partnering with Descendant communities and the Park to answer new questions about Native Americans' place in the Grand Teton ecosystem. The talk will summarize ongoing research on 100s of stone tools and dozens of stone circles (i.e., tipi foundations) in the Park as well as plans to examine ancient cooking features and plant genetics, all of which is generating nuanced insights into the ways that people shaped and were shaped by the Grand Tetons.

Bio

Randy Haas is an archaeologist who investigates forager societies (aka, hunter-gatherers) of the past in order to better understand human behavior in the present. Particular topics of interest include forager diets, mobility, technology, cooperation, and mountain adaptation. Haas leads archaeological excavations and survey projects in the Andes Mountains of Peru and mountain regions of western North America. He specializes in quantitative comparative approaches that integrate large datasets across North and South America.