SAA

VIDEO IN MEMORIAM GAMES AND ARCHAEOLOGY
ROBERT PORTER POWERS
1952–2016
Robert “Bob” Porter Powers was born in 1952 in Laguna
Beach, California, and passed away January 2, 2016, in
Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was his mother who suggested
that he enter the field of archaeology. As a high school graduate,
Bob was more interested in taking his partly functional
jeep on a trip to South America than a college education. His
mother bargained with him: if he completed a year in archaeology
(she noted his affinity for dirt) at the University of Arizona,
he could take his trip. The trip was
started with two friends, but the vehicle
failed; Bob, however, eventually earned
an M.A. in archaeology.
Bob’s first fieldwork was with the School
of American Research crew excavating
Arroyo Hondo Pueblo. His career with
the National Park Service (NPS) began at
Chaco Canyon National Monument in
1974, where he took part in the excavation
of Pueblo Alto, among other sites,
and later led the Chaco outlier survey. He
is remembered for his commitment to
the Chaco Project, which extended
throughout his career as he authored,
oversaw, or enabled numerous projects
by park service colleagues, students, and
other professionals, including a final
synthesis of Chaco Project contributions.
In the mid-1980s, he began work as project
director on the Bandelier Archaeological
Survey, a five-year, 14,000-acre effort
reported in technical papers, bachelor’s
and master’s theses, and dissertations, and concluded with
the award-winning popular book The Peopling of Bandelier:
New Insights from the Archaeology of the Pajarito Plateau, in collaboration
with the School for Advanced Research and David
Grant Noble. In the late 1990s, Bob returned to school for his
M.A. at the University of New Mexico (2000) and pursued a
doctoral degree there until 2014. His planned dissertation
examined agricultural strategies, population mobility, and village
formation in Bandelier National Monument.
As an archaeologist for the Intermountain Region of the NPS,
Bob also oversaw major inventory projects at Pecos, Natural
Bridges, Bryce Canyon, and El Malpais national monuments
and at Amistad National Recreation Area. The people who
worked with Bob in the field or in the office recall the highfunctioning
teams of people he created, his intellectual and
personal generosity as a manager, and his remarkable work
ethic.
Both as a NPS employee and as a volunteer, Bob was a tireless
advocate for New Mexico archaeology. He worked with the
Bureau of Land Management to protect archaeological sites in
the Galisteo Basin and served on the
Society for American Archaeology’s task
force, working to protect the sites and
traditional cultural properties associated
with the Greater Chaco Landscape.
Bob was a regular at the annual Pecos
Conference and helped organize the
1989 meeting at Bandelier. In 2013, noting
the increasingly gray heads of fellow
attendees, Bob came up with the idea of
offering a prize for the best paper presented
by a young archaeologist. Originally
named in honor of Linda Cordell, a
dear friend of Bob and his wife, Willow,
this year it has been renamed the
Cordell/Powers Prize. In the three years
since its inception, Pecos attendees have
marveled at the dramatic effect Bob’s
idea has had on the quality of papers presented
and at the enthusiastic mob of
young people who now attend.
Bob is survived by his wife, Willow, an
anthropologist and archivist, whom he
met at Chaco Canyon and married in 1985. Their rambling
adobe house in Santa Fe is a testament to Bob’s enormous talent
in every sort of craft; the wide circle of friends entertained
there is a testament to their enjoyment of and curiosity about
the world around them.
Thanks to Willow Roberts Powers, Paul Reed, David Grant
Noble, Jon Sandor, and Signa Larralde.
—Sarah Herr, Desert Archaeology Inc., and Catherine M.
Cameron, University of Colorado, Boulder
38 The SAA Archaeological Record • November 2016