Background
Ruth M. Van Dyke (PhD, University of Arizona, 1998) is an anthropological archaeologist specializing in the study of the ancient Pueblo Southwest, particularly Chaco Canyon and the greater Chaco world. Her research focuses on the sensory and experiential nature of landscapes and emphasizes Indigenous collaboration.
She is the author or co-editor of more than 50 articles and book chapters, and six books. In The Chaco Experience (2008), Van Dyke presented a history of Chaco, foregrounding a sense of place and landscape, arguing that ancient Chacoans organized their spatial and social worlds according to cardinal directions, cyclicality, and visible high places.
Her most recent book, (2021, co-edited with Carrie Heitman), was undertaken in collaboration with Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, and Navajo cultural experts. In this multimedia work, scholarly and Indigenous colleagues joined forces to raise public awareness of the threats posed by encroaching mineral development. The Greater Chaco Landscape won the 2021 American Anthropological Association Engaged Anthropology Award and the 2022 Society for American Archaeology Popular Book Award.
Select Publications
- Van Dyke, R.M., K.E. Primeau, K. Throgmorton, and D. Witt (2024). Seashells and Sound Waves: Modeling Soundscapes in Chacoan Great House Communities. Antiquity 98(399):777-794. .
- Van Dyke, R.M. (2021). Ethics, Not Objects. In 鈥淒ebating Posthumanism in Archaeology,鈥 special section edited by M. Fern谩ndez-G枚tz, A. Gardner, G. D铆az de Lia帽o, and O.J.T. Harris. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 31 (3):487鈥493. " class="redactor-autoparser-object">#####replacepa...
- Van Dyke, R.M. (2019) Archaeology and Social Memory. Annual Review of Anthropology 48:207-225.
- Van Dyke, R.M. (2017) Durable Stones, Mutable Pasts: Bundled Memory in the Alsatian Community of Castroville, Texas. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 24(1):10-27.
- Van Dyke, R.M., R. K. Bocinsky, T.C. Windes and T.J. Robinson (2016). Great Houses, Shrines, and High Places: A GIS Viewshed Analysis of the Chacoan World. American Antiquity 81(2):205-230.
Education
- PhD in anthropology, University of Arizona, 1998
- MA in anthropology, University of Arizona,1988
- BA in anthropology with highest honors, University of Texas at Austin, 1986
Research Interests
- Southwest United States
- Landscape, place, and space
- Indigenous collaboration
- Memory, materiality, and social theory
- Historical archaeology
- Archaeology of pilgrimage
Teaching Interests
- Archaeologies of Landscape
- Native America Today
- Materiality and Agency
- Archaeology of the American Southwest/Northwest Mexico
- Historical and Contemporary Archaeology
Awards
- U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 2026
- Lois B. DeFleur Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, 麻豆社 鈥 State University of New York, 2023
- State University of New York Chancellor鈥檚 Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, 2023
- Society for American Archaeology Book Award (Popular Category), with Carrie C. Heitman, for The Greater Chaco Landscape: Ancestors, Scholarship, and Advocacy, 2022
- American Anthropological Association Engaged Anthropology Award, with Carrie C. Heitman, for The Greater Chaco Landscape: Ancestors, Scholarship, and Advocacy, 2021