SAA

IN MEMORIAM
ELLIOTT M. LAX
1959–2015
Archaeology lost a cherished friend when Elliott M. Lax
died on February 5, 2015, in Tucson, Arizona, after a
protracted battle with melanoma. Elliott Lax was a gifted
teacher and passionate mentor who dedicated much of his
life to the vital but underappreciated role of serving as a
bridge between general education and archaeology.
In the fall of 1991, one chapter in Elliott’s life closed but
another opened. Elliott left graduate school to focus on teaching.
Although he was the chemistry teacher at St. Gregory
High School in Tucson, he convinced the
administrators to let him teach a course on
anthropology. I was one of six students who
signed up. Elliott brought the human story to
life with his expertise and enthusiasm. More
significantly, he dedicated himself to drawing
us out of the classroom into experiences that
gave us a taste of the excitement of the field.
We took a field trip to Chaco Canyon. We dug
alongside researchers at a Hohokam platform
mound. The next year Elliott personally
taught me the basics of zooarchaeology.
Elliott took me to my first SAA annual meeting
when I was still a pimply high schooler.
This approach of gentle inspiration—making anthropology
exciting, then tapping his network to offer students unique
opportunities—became Elliott’s pedagogical hallmark. He
inspired a string of students to pursue archaeology. From that
first class alone, two of us received anthropology degrees.
Other former students who studied archaeology because of
Elliott’s mentorship include Lauren M. Kingston (Casa
Grande Ruins National Monument), Estee Rivera Murdock
(Saguaro National Park), and Erin M. DenBaars (Arizona
State Museum). All of them expressed to me that Elliott was
special not only because he could make science accessible but
also because he treated everyone’s dreams as important.
“When I was a kid, he always made me feel like an adult, and
when I was an adult, he made me feel like a peer,” Estee wrote
me. “In the years after high school, I was always excited to run
into him and see the genuine enthusiasm he had to see anyone
succeed and be passionate about their work.”
Elliott himself discovered archaeology during high school,
when he had the chance to excavate at the Koster Site, an
archaic-period village in southern Illinois. He went on to
receive an undergraduate degree from the University of
Chicago. For graduate school, Elliott attended the University
of Arizona, first receiving an MA in anthropology in 1984; he
then transferred to the geosciences program. Friends recall
that Elliott was frustrated by his graduate school experience.
But none remember him as embittered. Elliott was persistently
optimistic; little could inhibit his wonderful quirks, quick
wit, and serious smarts. He was a kind soul. And although
Elliott did not become a full-time archaeologist, he found his
calling as an educator in Tucson. After St. Gregory, Elliott was
a successful science teacher at Catalina Foothills High School
and then played a key role for nearly a decade in chartering
City High School. In 2013, he became the school coordinator
at Refugee Focus, which provides safety to
immigrant families fleeing persecution.
Yet, through the years, archaeology remained
Elliott’s touchstone. He conducted fieldwork
nearly every year, traveling to Greece, Cyprus,
Brazil, Bolivia, Hawaii, and throughout
southern Arizona. He was a dedicated member
of two volunteer-driven organizations in
Tucson, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center and
Archaeology Southwest. Between 2003 and
2008, Elliott contributed as an instructor to a
$2.9 million National Science Foundation
grant at the University of Arizona, which
involved an interdisciplinary training program
in archaeological sciences for K-12 teachers. Because
archaeology is not a required subject in Arizona curriculum,
Elliott and his colleagues deployed great ingenuity to smuggle
the discipline into subjects like earth sciences and history.
Elliott’s eagerness to share archaeology and his perennial
good-naturedness was perfectly on display one summer day
in 1996. Elliott had become a part-time field director at Sabino
Canyon Ruin, a Hohokam site being excavated by Old Pueblo
Archaeology. A fellow high school teacher of his, Robert
Mossman, had wanted to dig and Elliott welcomed him. That
day, Mr. Mossman recently wrote me, they found a beautiful
ceramic vessel—large and seemingly intact. They painstakingly
uncovered it. They had the pot almost completely
exposed when, suddenly, it collapsed into pieces. Mr. Mossman
was crestfallen. But Elliott laughed with an impish grin.
“Don’t worry, it happens all the time,” Elliott said. “Now someone
just gets to put it together!”
—Chip Colwell, current SAA Board Member and Curator of
Anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science
40 The SAA Archaeological Record • November 2015