Salt Lake archaeologist Elizabeth Hora is a public archaeologist, a burgeoning field in archaeology that aims to engage the public in archaeological discovery while promoting stewardship and preservation of cultural resources.

She invites us to consider the delicate balance between encouraging all the public to visit archaeological sites and enjoy our cultural heritage, while minimizing our impact to keep them intact for future generations. This she says is the ‘predicament of preservation.’ And Elizabeth sees a growing need of people dedicated to working on this. Archaeologists are in shortage!

Elizabeth describes and demystifies this multi-disciplinary field with many career options, with one example being her work analyzing Fremont rock art using art, math, and science– a technique she and her team are developing to understand more about these people who once etched and painted these images into stone.

The results, she hopes, will retell the story of the Fremonts not as a singular static group, but rather reveal a constellation of behaviors, as diverse and complex as any modern human society today.