Indigenous Archaeology, Collaborative Practice, and Rock Imagery: An Example from the North American Southwest

Abstract

While ethnography has held an essential place in the study of Indigenous rock imagery (i.e., petroglyphs and pictographs) in the United States for the past century and a half, rarely are Tribes and other descendant communities involved throughout the entire research program—from conception to publication. This contrasts with recent developments within more traditional “dirt” archaeology, where over the past 30 years, Tribes have assumed greater roles in decision-making, fieldwork, artifact curation, data management, interpretation of results, and repatriation of ancestral belongings. In concert with these changes, Indigenous archaeology has emerged as a domain of theory and practice wherein archaeological research and cultural heritage management center the voices and interests of Indigenous communities. Collaboration among researchers and Indigenous communities has proven to be an effective means of practicing Indigenous archaeology and advancing its goals, but research into rock imagery all too often still limits Indigenous engagement and knowledge to the interpretation of the imagery. This article highlights a case study in Tribal collaboration from the North American Southwest in the interest of advancing an Indigenous archaeology of rock imagery.

1. Introduction

Archaeology positions itself as a professional and scholarly mode of inquiry into humanity’s past, yet it is not stoically unaffected by current or future social and political movements nor unresponsive to shifts in public consciousness. In ways both subtle and overt, contemporary contexts can condition understandings and interpretations of the past broadly held among the public and, in so doing, influence a society’s collective memory of itself as well as its relationship to other cultural and physical domains (Bakieva 2007). With deliberate decolonization agendas gaining ground in myriad sectors throughout society, and with socio-political activism in support of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination building momentum and achieving successes across the globe (e.g., Altamirano Rayo et al. 2024; Norman 2017; Shrinkhal 2021; Tennberg 2010), it should therefore come as no surprise to see historical fields and social sciences respond. The rise of Indigenous archaeology—not an overarching academic pursuit but an assortment of local, community-based, and community-driven ways of reclaiming the past for the benefit of contemporary descendant communities—is one such response.

Though over 30 years in the making, Indigenous archaeology is a quickly developing arena in both the academic and applied domains of archaeology and cultural heritage management in the United States (US). Examples, however, have, by and large, centered on traditional “dirt” archaeology—the excavation of sites, recovery and curation of materials, and repatriation of ancestral belongings to their rightful owners. As is all too often the case in US archaeology, rock imagery has received less attention from critical fields, including but not limited to Indigenous archaeology.1 In an effort to initiate such a dialogue, this article highlights a case study at the intersection of Indigenous archaeology, Tribal collaboration, and rock imagery. The discussion initiates with consideration of Indigenous archaeology as a social act, then explains the role of Tribal collaboration in achieving the aims of desirable social action. It then touches briefly upon the rather limited historical involvement of Indigenous communities in US-based rock imagery research. This sets the stage for a review of the Lower Gila River Ethnographic and Archaeological Project, a collaborative research program along the Lower Gila River in the Sonoran Desert region of the North American Southwest, in which five Tribes and several non-Indigenous organizations partnered to better learn about and protect a landscape rich in fragile heritage assets, including an array of world-class rock imagery.

2. Indigenous Archaeology as Social Critique

Archaeology should rightly be regarded as both an outcome of and catalyst for centuries of settler-colonialism (Effros and Lai 2018; Hingley 2014; Lydon and Rizvi 2010; McNiven and Russell 2005), much of which emanated from Europe, for the benefit of European governments, economic institutions, and wealthy citizens, and largely at the expense and detriment of Indigenous communities throughout the world. As a body of theory and practice rooted in Enlightenment philosophy that girded and guided the colonial agenda for centuries, antiquarianism, including archaeology, has traditionally served to define Indigenous histories—and hence Indigenous societies—with little-to-no regard for Indigenous ontologies, values, and systems of historical reasoning. Practiced in the absence of, or worse in opposition to, the concerns and interests of Indigenous communities, archaeology, and related fields can, and have, disempowered and disenfranchised descendants in profound ways. In North America, this has manifested through detachment from traditional lands, denial of authenticity and authority of oral histories and traditional knowledge, disruption to cultural identity, and language extinction, all in manners that work to divorce contemporary people from their ancestors and, by virtue, themselves.

New modes of Indigenous archaeology, on the other hand, pose a radical and significant redirection in archaeological theory, practice, and interpretation (Allen and Phillips 2010; Atalay 2006, 2008, 2012; Atalay et al. 2014; Bruchac et al. 2010; Colwell 2016; Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al. 2010; Laluk 2025; McNiven 2016; Nicholas 2008; Nicholas and Andrews 1997; Silliman 2008a, 2010; Smith and Wobst 2005; Supernant et al. 2020; Van Alst and Shield Chief Gover 2024a; Watkins 2000, 2011). Similar to feminist, queer, and gender archaeology, Indigenous archaeology is a rebuke to archaeology as pioneered and popularized in the first half of the twentieth century. Indigenous archaeology is, essentially, a critique of traditional and otherwise normative, Western science-centric archaeology, which has often been accused of cultural and racial insensitivity, cultural appropriation, and the marginalization of Indigenous voices and perspectives. As academic discourse, it also has a sordid history wherein class and privilege all too often dictate who participates in it as well as who benefits because of it, effectively excluding broad swaths of society from the production, consumption, and appreciation of social, cultural, and historical knowledge (Claassen 1994; Heath-Stout and Hannigan 2020; Ribiero and Giamakis 2022; Rivera Prince et al. 2022). In counterbalance, Indigenous archaeology emphasizes respectful, inclusive, reflective, multivocal, and collaborative approaches to studying, interpreting, managing, and preserving Indigenous histories and heritage, both materially and conceptually. As Silliman (2008b, p. 2) shares, “doing [I]ndigenous archaeology means embracing an archaeology for, with, and by Indigenous people…[while] making archaeology responsive to Indigenous needs, histories, perspectives, and worldviews”.

Considered practically, Indigenous archaeology aims to explicitly address “limitations and biases of Western science, as well as the significant power imbalances faced by minority communities” (Nicholas 2008, p. 1665). From Spivey-Faulkner’s (2024, p. 33) perspective, “archaeological hard sciences were, and often still are, European folk sciences that are by definition no more objective than Indigenous folk sciences”. Yet Indigenous archaeology is not inherently opposed to Western or other types of archaeology because it embraces multivocality (Atalay 2008) and is open to epistemological pluralism (Wylie 2015). Indeed, the tension between Indigenous and Western ideologies, when accepted and managed, has the potential to bring about novel methods, practices, ethics, and interpretations (Nicholas and Montgomery 2023, p. 514).

While Indigenous archaeology presents a welcomed complement and balance to traditional Euro–American approaches, it can also be understood as a mode of social justice motivated to rectify asymmetries of power and authority over cultural heritage (e.g., Fricke and Hoerman 2022; Laluk 2025; Laluk et al. 2022; Smith et al. 2019). In certain contexts, if not most, it serves as “a political act of resistance and rhetorical sovereignty” (Steeves 2020, p. 5696). Rather than prioritize the objectives of non-Native researchers, governments, and audiences, Indigenous archaeology centers the interests of local descendant communities with the intent to provide benefits to and empower those communities. Accordingly, Indigenous archaeological methodology and practice are highly context-dependent and are thus heterogeneous since local communities are culturally diverse and embedded in specific historical and situational contingencies (Van Alst and Shield Chief Gover 2024b, p. xxv). The prioritization of community involvement, integration of Indigenous knowledge (both traditional ecological knowledge and traditional cultural knowledge), and respect for place are common denominators. Shared elements include Indigenous inclusion via participation, collaboration, or leadership throughout every stage of a project (from design and inception to publication and curation) (e.g., Kelly et al. 2024; Whiting 2024); acceptance of traditional knowledge as a valid source of historical and scientific evidence (e.g., Nicholas and Markey 2015); foregrounding Indigenous voices and agency in interpretation (e.g., Porr and Bell 2012); adherence to Indigenous ethics and protocols regarding stewardship, ownership, and dispossession of ancestors, ancestral places, and ancestral implements (e.g., Gonzalez 2017); willingness to adopt new or otherwise unconventional approaches that honor and integrate Indigenous ontologies (e.g., Gonzalez and Edwards 2020); elevating ceremonial and spiritual importance to the same level of significance, or beyond, as historical and scientific importance (e.g., Cameron 2024). Likewise, sovereignty over research and data—wherein Indigenous communities control the archaeological remains and information garnered from them, which pertain to them or their ancestors or originate from their traditional lands—is a burgeoning principle of Indigenous archaeology (Gupta et al. 2020, 2022; Nicholas et al. 2024).

Indigenous Archaeology and Tribal Collaboration

In considering the essence and aims of Indigenous archaeology, as both a disciplinary field and critical social field as outlined above, a fundamental question, or point of tension perhaps, arises—can Indigenous archaeology be credibly practiced by persons of non-Indigenous identity and ancestry? Opinions are bound to vary. However, as Atalay (2006, pp. 293–94) points out, Indigenous archaeology is a decolonizing practice that adopts, in myriad ways, a critical stance that challenges “the master narrative,” de-centers traditional or otherwise normative archaeology, and empowers Indigenous communities with regard to control over their heritage. Breaking down social dichotomies—such as Indigenous/non-Indigenous—is a common tenet within Indigenous archaeology (Paradies 2006). One’s racial or cultural identity need not be a factor; indeed, as Atalay explains, traditional archaeology practiced by Indigenous persons sans a critical or otherwise decolonizing agenda does not meet the muster of Indigenous archaeology as forwarded and espoused by its supporters. It is the manner and rationale of practice that matter, and—as long as Indigenous persons are involved as co-equals throughout the project’s design, implementation, and output (Silliman 2008b, pp. 2–4)—there is room for non-Indigenous practitioners so long as they align themselves with an Indigenous archaeological agenda. Given the inherently diverse ways Indigenous archaeology manifests among different communities and across contexts, it might be better conceptualized along a spectrum of decolonial practice rather than presented as a binary of colonizing/decolonizing or normative/Indigenous.

The growing number of Indigenous persons involved in archaeology and cultural heritage management more broadly—especially since the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990 and amendment to the National Historic Preservation Act in 1992 that facilitated the development of Tribal Historic Preservation Offices—has been a primary catalyst for the development and increasing acceptance of Indigenous archaeology in the US. Still, with 2.9 percent of the US population in 2020 identifying as Native American or Alaska Native and just 2.2 percent of members of the Society for American Archaeology (2020) (the US’s largest organization for professional archaeologists) identifying similarly, Indigenous persons remain sorely underrepresented in US-based archaeological practice, especially in the academic domain and at advanced levels (i.e., principal investigators and project directors) within the cultural heritage management sector. In light of this underrepresentation, non-Indigenous allies are critical to advancing Indigenous archaeology at present and for the foreseeable future.

Collaboration among trained archaeologists, cultural heritage professionals, and Indigenous communities is a key avenue for implementing and furthering Indigenous archaeology within both the applied and academic dimensions of the discipline. As Silliman (2008b, pp. 7–8) explains, it is important to differentiate between Tribal collaboration and Tribal consultation. In the US, Tribal consultation is a contrived, legal framework through which federal government agencies present project proposals to official governmental representatives from potentially affected Tribes in order to solicit their perspectives prior to an agency’s decision to proceed with an undertaking (CRS 2024). Agencies are not obligated to act according to Tribes’ wishes or in response to their input but to merely listen and take their concerns under consideration, often balanced against the desires of competing interests. While the consultation process involves Tribes in dialogue, at present, it does not afford them an equitable seat at the decision-making table (Mengden 2017).

In the realm of land management, Tribal consultation usually involves dialogue pertaining to Tribes’ traditional practices, religious beliefs, and cultural values toward places—both defined archaeological spaces (including those bearing rock imagery) as well as less bounded landforms and landscapes—topics around which Tribes may have reservations about divulging sensitive or privileged information. Understandably, the reasons for and the subjects of such consultations can be of concern to Tribes as well since deleterious alterations to those places are generally what is at stake. This dynamic all too often positions Tribes in no-win situations: either relinquishing control over guarded cultural knowledge (intangible heritage) and under conditions not of their choosing or watching important places (tangible heritage) succumb to undesirable transformation or outright destruction (Amberson 2017; Van Schilfgaarde 2020). Any cost–benefit analysis is further muddied by the reality that there is no guarantee that places are protected, even when Tribes elect to share knowledge regarding their significance. Such dialogue can be tense, and impasses between federal agencies and Tribes are common. Because it is a formal relationship between sovereign entities, involves a turnstile of federal agencies, and covers a seemingly limitless list of topics, Tribal consultation has become rote for many Indigenous communities, and the process is formulaic and bureaucratic. One prominent attorney has characterized it as both “too much” and “too little” (Miller 2015, p. 64)—too much with regard to the frequency of federal agency undertakings that solicit Tribal consultation, wherein Tribes have too little power in the overall process. Another has described it as a “fundamentally inadequate” and “flawed approach to [T]ribe-agency engagement” (Bevan 2021, p. 600).

Tribal collaboration, in contrast, “emphasizes social relationship, joint decision-making, equitable communication, mutual respect, and ethics” (Silliman 2008b, p. 7). Tribal collaboration prioritizes the relationship among the collaborators; it is as much about building community and achieving shared goals as it is about development, profit, research results, and any other motivator that would trigger a formal consultation. In Tribal consultations, federal agencies wield all the power; in Tribal collaborations, authority and control over a project and its results are shared among all partners. Tribal collaborations are essentially partnerships (Lightfoot 2008, pp. 212–15), where the collaborators—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—are both invested in the relationship, project, and outcomes (e.g., Atalay et al. 2014; Supernant et al. 2020). Tribal collaboration necessitates “horizontalism,” or a balancing of contribution and position among all collaborators (Angelbeck and Grier 2014). And while power-sharing within Tribal collaborations occurs along a continuum (Colwell 2016, pp. 116–17), many efforts that might be regarded as “imperfect” can still contribute to the critical and decolonizing agenda inherent to Indigenous archaeology (Kimmel et al. 2023). Therefore, opportunities for Tribal collaboration, no matter how imbalanced and imperfect, allow gateways for non-Indigenous persons to participate in and contribute to Indigenous archaeology, provided that the aims of the collaboration align with the agenda and ethics of decolonizing archaeological practice and empowering Indigenous or otherwise descendant communities.

There is, of course, no singular or “right” way at Tribal collaboration, just as there is no orthodoxy in Indigenous archaeology. Case studies, to which this article contributes, offer guidance as well as cautionary tales. To set the stage, Archaeology Southwest—a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization committed to Tribal collaboration and whose mission is to protect and explore heritage places while honoring their diverse values—released a model of Tribal collaboration (Thompson and Begay 2023). Developed by two Indigenous staff members with lived histories in the Great Lakes and Southwest regions of the US, this public document, while intended for internal use, was designed as a template for others, and it offers a conceptual framework around which Tribal collaboration can be structured and gauged.

Thompson and Begay (2023) stress that relationships are the foundation of any healthy and productive collaboration with Indigenous communities. Following Harris and Wasilewski (2004) and drawing from Indigenous research principles and methodologies more broadly (Archibald et al. 2019; Kirkness and Barnhardt 1991; Kovach 2009; Tsosie et al. 2022; Wilson 2008), they suggest Tribal collaborations in archaeological research should demonstrate four “Rs”—relationship, responsibility, reciprocity, and redistribution—kinship values inherent in Indigenous ontologies. The relationship value acknowledges that deliberate effort should be placed on building trust, rapport, and respect with Tribal partners. It affirms that time, truth, and humility are essential and that communication must transcend transactional exchanges (compare with the nature and structure of Tribal consultation, for example). The relationship value entails transparency in communication and awareness and acceptance of one’s position relative to others and the project under consideration.

The responsibility kinship value underscores that archaeological practice, whether theoretical or material, academic or applied, can ultimately harm descendant or otherwise associated communities. Such harm need not be intentional. In fact, most past harms caused to Indigenous communities through archaeology were likely not deliberate but resulted instead from naivete, self-interest, and lack of concern for others. Here, harm is not limited to impacts wrought by archaeological fieldwork to places valued by Tribes, sacred site location disclosure, or the introduction of bias or the privilege of Western science over Indigenous understanding in project reports, publications, and public interpretations. What professionals say and how they say it has real consequences for contemporary, often historically marginalized people and their relationships with and control over their heritage (Watson et al. 2022; Wright and Welch 2025; Zimmerman and Conkey 2024). Collaborating with such communities in each stage of a project, especially over decisions and strategy about research design, theory, methods, interpretation, and curation, is a viable way of accepting and implementing responsibility.

Respectful relationships also entail reciprocity, another kinship value. This differs from a transactional relationship in that the exchange behind reciprocity is thoughtful, intended to help the other party, and does not call for immediate and instantaneous recompensation. Reciprocity is the give-and-take that builds and sustains partnerships. In Tribal collaboration, it can take many forms—fair reimbursement for peoples’ time and knowledge, sponsorship of community events, and sharing of authorship on publications are easy and widely implementable scenarios. With regard to the aims of Indigenous archaeology, intentionally developing projects and addressing research questions wherein collaborative practice and findings can enhance and enrich the lives of partnered Indigenous communities and leveraging one’s position and capacity to perform these actions are modes of reciprocity.

Finally, healthy collaborative relationships are girded through redistribution. To complement reciprocity—wherein there is a mutual exchange between partners in the collaboration—redistribution entails the dissemination of resources into the associated Indigenous community with the goal of improving quality of life and helping alleviate social inequality, as determined by the community in question. Resources in this context are not limited to financial support; providing opportunities and building capacity within Indigenous communities are forms of reciprocity. Sharing knowledge garnered through collaborative projects with the broader community, especially in formats of their choosing, in their language, and adhering to their values and customs is another example.

3. Indigenous Archaeology of Rock Imagery

Albeit localized, diverse, and heterarchical, a common theme throughout Indigenous archaeology and much Tribal collaboration in archaeology is the conscious and deliberate incorporation of Indigenous perspectives, voices, agendas, and values into research, management, and interpretation. In North America, the study of rock imagery, a subject of interest in archaeology and other disciplines, is perhaps one of the first domains to solicit and welcome Indigenous input and interpretation explicitly. As early as the 1880s, for instance, Garrick Mallery (1886, 1893) of the Bureau of American Ethnology sought out Indigenous interpretations for petroglyphs and pictographs in his effort to understand Indigenous ways of communication. Rather than regard the illustrations as mere doodles, Mallery accepted them as complex narratives about matters of considerable significance, including Indigenous history and religion. His scholarship was a radical departure from his predecessors and contemporaries, many of whom ascribed such “hieroglyphs” to any number of ancient Old-World languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, Egyptian, Phoenician, etc.—thereby denying Indigenous communities in North America any patrimony to or authority over their and their ancestors’ markings.

Mallery’s pioneering work influenced younger generations. Notably, Julian Steward (1929), while a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, undertook an impressive synthesis of western North American rock imagery using the university’s fledgling archive of photographs and illustrations (Figure 1). Much in the way of Mallery, Steward approached the symbolism and distribution of rock imagery through comparison and analogy to contemporary Tribes—a manner of archaeological theory he later popularized as the “direct historical approach” (Steward 1942). Steward maintained that “The meaning and purpose of petroglyphs and pictographs can only be ascertained through careful study of art and symbolism of present Indian groups and a comparison of these with petrographic elements” (Steward 1929, p. 225). Moreover, Steward used Tribal ceremony and religion as windows into understanding why and by whom the imagery may have been created and used and what the motifs and their compositions could signify.

Given Steward’s respectful deference to contemporary Tribes while at Berkeley, it is somewhat surprising that in just a few years, he adopted a completely different stance. In a report to the Smithsonian Institution while employed by its Bureau of American Ethnology—the same agency for which Mallery had worked 50 years prior—Steward wrote, “When, therefore, anyone not excepting Indians, pretends to interpret [petroglyphs and pictographs], unless he has the direct testimony of the original artist, one may be assured that it is merely his own entirely unfounded guess” (Steward 1936, p. 409, emphasis added). This blanket dismissal of Indigenous interpretations of ancestral marks presaged a deeper sentiment presented later in the report:

The testimony of modern Indians concerning petroglyphs is extraordinarily disappointing. They know of them as landmarks, and sometimes believe them to have had a supernatural origin. But even where there is good evidence that the glyphs were made by the [T]ribes now inhabiting the area, the practice seems generally to have been abandoned at the advent of the white man and most knowledge of them promptly lost.

(Steward 1936, p. 412, emphasis added)

A thorough consideration of Steward’s reversal in perspective is beyond the present scope, but several points of rebuttal merit consideration. For one, Steward seems to imply a petroglyph or pictograph, or assemblage thereof, was intended to convey a certain meaning and one specific to the person(s) who made it, which, therefore, reduces anyone else’s interpretation to mere speculation or guesswork. Symbolic intentionality is a rather bold assumption, however (Malotki and Dissanayake 2018). Ambiguity, for instance, may have been intrinsic to the creator’s intentions (e.g., Cabak Rédei et al. 2020) or used as a means for safeguarding or otherwise controlling the intellectual accessibility of the symbolism, such as may have been the case with much of the Archaic rock imagery of western North America (e.g., Potter 2004, pp. 332–37). Or, the imagery may have been made by more than one person at the same or different times and for different reasons, thereby obviating any reason to assume a motif or scene was intended to have any single significance or interpretation.

Second, cultural knowledge surrounding rock imagery may not have been broadly shared within the societies that produced it. If that were so, then one should not expect any individual Tribal consultant to know about particular meanings or interpretations beyond their own personal experiences and impressions. While certain places may host thousands upon thousands of discrete rock images, it is appropriate to contextualize those figures relative to the size of the communities that made them and the duration of the epoch of their creation. For example, both Wallace (2008, p. 227) and Whitley (1982, pp. 180–84) suggest very few petroglyphs were made in any given year in the Picacho Mountains of southern Arizona and the Coso Range of south–central California, respectively. With data from the South Mountains in south–central Arizona, the author modeled that, on average, only three to six petroglyphs were made within that 82 km²-sized landscape per year (Wright 2014, pp. 173–74). Moreover, when those calculations are scaled to the local demography, he modeled that less than one petroglyph was made per year for every hundred people occupying the adjacent Hohokam villages. For southern Arizona, at least, these data indicate petroglyph manufacture was rather uncommon and probably highly restricted to select persons and/or occasions—certainly, not everyone was making petroglyphs, and those that made them did not create them on a frequent basis. Considering such selectivity and rarity, it would be naive to contend anyone from one of those societies could elaborate on any true meaning behind the imagery, let alone their descendants many generations removed, and this may help explain why Tribal consultants sometimes share inconsistent interpretations or refrain from attributing the imagery to any one person, occasion, or reason (Wallace 2008, pp. 227–28; see also Whitley 2000).

Third, Steward implies by his remarks that even if a Tribal member maintained specific cultural information regarding any one or more pictographs or petroglyphs, they would willingly share it with someone outside their community, and an anthropologist nonetheless. In light of the contention that very few people were engaged in manufacturing rock imagery, as just demonstrated for the western US, it is reasonable to suspect that the cultural information concerning rock imagery’s meaning, significance, and power could be guarded or otherwise regarded as secret or restricted to certain persons or classes of people within the community. Anthropologists have been credibly accused of divulging sensitive cultural information at improper times and to unauthorized audiences, without Tribal consent, and at times to the detriment of the Tribal community. Tribes have learned from these past violations and may be reluctant to share such information as a result, regardless of the solicitor’s intentions—hence, tense conversations induced by contrived Tribal consultation protocols noted above. Tribal consultants should not be expected to divulge sensitive cultural information, especially when they are not compensated nor guaranteed the respectful and sanctioned use of such information.

The last point of rebuttal centers on Steward’s narrow engagement with Indigenous communities regarding their ancestral rock imagery. In comparing his shift in sentiment between 1929 and 1936, it appears that a level of frustration, or in his words, “disappoint,” set in with the realization that Tribal consultants could not or would not divulge cultural information pertinent to elucidating any infallible explanations or interpretations of the rock imagery. Attention is directed to two issues with Steward’s reaction. It seems that interpretation of imagery was perhaps his sole prerogative when investigating rock imagery. When he learned decipherment of the imagery was not viable under the criteria he was seeking, Steward essentially “gave up” on rock imagery research—after publishing one of the seminal works on rock imagery in North America, he never again broached the subject in any substantive manner during his otherwise illustrative career.

Efforts at interpretation seem to be an innate response when one is confronted with rock imagery. It is therefore understandable that, despite Steward’s consternation, the use of ethnography in interpretation remains a major theme and fruitful avenue in rock imagery research in the U.S. (e.g., Boyd 2016; Keyser et al. 2006) and globally (e.g., Blundell et al. 2012; Morwood and Hobbs 1992; Smith et al. 2012). Indeed, collaboration with descendant communities on the interpretation of rock imagery has gained incredible traction in recent years throughout the world (e.g., Hampson et al. 2024; li-Yanyuwa li-Wirdiwalangu et al. 2023; McGranaghan and Challis 2016; Taçon et al. 2022; Tapper et al. 2020; Tsang et al. 2021). Collaboration and ethnographically informed interpretation of rock imagery is certainly aligned with the aims of Indigenous archaeology (e.g., Van Alst 2024), and there are instances in which members of Indigenous communities take it upon themselves to publish narratives and interpretations of their ancestors’ marks (e.g., Chino 2012; McCleary 2015; Pantema Lewis and LaDage 2015; Patterson 2016; York et al. 1993). Interpretation, however, need not be the sole line of rock imagery inquiry that can or should engage descendant Indigenous communities. For instance, examinations of the spatial relationships among rock imagery and the broader landscapes in which it exists have proven to be a rather productive area of scholarship and one in which Indigenous perspectives are quite instrumental in understanding the signification and significance of the imagery (e.g., Blundell and Laue 2024; Stoffle et al. 2024; Whitley et al. 2025).

The second issue taken with Steward’s reaction—his narrowness of engagement with Indigenous communities—frames the remainder of this article. Steward relied on Indigenous community members as consultants only in both his rock imagery research and his ethnographic work among Tribes in the Great Basin of western North America more generally. He did not incorporate Indigenous concerns or perspectives in any other area of his research program, and his work was not expressly concerned with empowering or benefiting Indigenous communities, redressing historical asymmetries in control over their heritage, or acknowledging, let alone addressing biases in Western science. Steward’s anthropological work should be lauded as groundbreaking and influential, certainly. The decolonizing aims and concerns of Indigenous archaeology simply were not part of the fabric of North American archaeology in the first half of the twentieth century, and Steward was working at a time when anthropologists were primarily concerned with “salvaging” information from traditional societies facing extreme pressures of acculturation, assimilation, and ethnocide wrought by federal policies, industrialization, and other modes of settler-colonialism (Gruber 1970).

The objective is not to criticize Steward. This discussion instead pedestals his disappointment with rock imagery research as a common and perhaps expected outcome when descendant communities are merely relied upon as interpreters of the imagery. It is not that engaging such communities is futile or unproductive. In the North American Southwest, for instance, anthropologists have much to learn when Indigenous communities are brought into dialogue regarding rock imagery located within their traditional lands (e.g., Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2003; Solometo et al. 2021; Young 1988). The point is that Indigenous and descendant communities have considerably more to offer rock imagery research than what is usually envisioned or requested by archaeologists. In Steward’s case, and frankly that of most others, Indigenous consultants were brought into the conversation near the end of the project—once hypotheses had been developed after archival research and fieldwork were completed and probably following delineation of preliminary findings. In ways, this late-to-the-table approach appears more performative than instructive. The remainder of this article reviews the Lower Gila River Ethnographic and Archaeological Project, a deliberate case of Tribal collaboration in rock imagery inventory, documentation, and study in the US-reach of the northern Sonoran Desert. It initiates with an outline of the project’s history and objectives, followed by a discussion of how the project implemented the four kinship values of Tribal collaboration referenced above.

4. The Lower Gila River Ethnographic and Archaeological Project

The Lower Gila River Ethnographic and Archaeological Project (LGREAP) was a seamless outgrowth of an advocacy campaign to permanently protect public land along the Lower Gila River valley in southwest Arizona as a national monument on account of its rich and unique archaeological record and its spiritual significance to contemporary Tribes (Wright et al. 2015; Cachora and Wright 2017). This stretch dubbed the Great Bend of the Gila (Figure 2), was known to host a dense concentration of petroglyphs from multiple archaeological traditions, including Hohokam, Pataya, and Western Archaic (Billo et al. 2013; Hedges 2000; Hedges and Hamann 1994, 1995; Martynec 1989; Wallace 1989). The landscape had been subject to just limited and unsystematic investigation, however, and contemporary Indigenous connections to this rural and rugged landscape were similarly unstudied outside of Tribal circles.

In an effort to better understand the heritage value that Tribes ascribe to the lower Gila’s rock imagery and the broader Great Bend of the Gila landscape, Wright and Hopkins (2016) prepared a cultural landscape study in close coordination and consultation with 11 associated Tribes (Figure 3). That formal engagement brought about three significant developments. One, of course, was the study report, which is freely available online and now serves as an essential tool for cultural affiliation studies in southern Arizona. Another was multiple endorsements of the Great Bend of the Gila National Monument by leadership from seven Tribal Nations, most of whom continue to advocate for the permanent federal protection of this landscape. Last, it established a relationship between the anthropologists and the Tribes who contributed to the study and joined in the advocacy campaign.

With collaborative relationships established around a shared objective—protection of the Great Bend of the Gila—and realizing a research need in regard to the area’s ethnohistory and archaeology, especially the world-class rock imagery for which it is renowned, the author applied for and was awarded a Collaborative Research Grant through the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The collaborating communities included the GRIC, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC), Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe (YPIT), Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe (FYQIT), and Cocopah Indian Tribe, each of whom provided a letter to the NEH during the application process outlining their support for the project and commitment to collaboration (Figure 4). Several excerpts follow:

The current ethnographic and archaeological sources note shifts between the Hohokam and Patayan traditions, suggesting a diverse and mixed cultural landscape. There is definitely more ethnographic and archaeological study to be done here. The SRPMIC is a Native community that derives their ancestry from both traditions. We believe any knowledge gathered from this endeavor can only benefit our already strong histories.

[SRPMIC Cultural Resources Director Kelly Washington, 2016]

This letter is to notify you of our support for the [LGREAP}. The Yavapai have a long history of our ancestral activities in the proposed area of research, especially in the use of rock writings (ewee-tinuddiv) and earth figures known as geoglyphs. Our elders have described these marking as “our libraries,” which record Pai (Patayan) creation stories (Ickyuka), early calendar reckoning by stars, and trail markings that proliferate in this area. We look forward to working with you to provide more information on the cultural identity of the Yuman language peoples, which include the Yavapai, as recorded in the marks on earth and stone and in the oral histories of our people.

[YPIT Culture Research Director Linda Ogo, 2016]

The lower Gila figures prominently in the Quechan creation account, and we maintain deep cultural and spiritual connections to this landscape. For us, these places manifest a spiritual power, and this essence binds our people to the land. The spiritual power unites all of [our] ancestral sites, as well as the landforms, animals, water, and people, into [a] holistic sacred landscape. We see [the project] as a way for our community to reconnect with ancestral Quechan places from which we have been displaced. These places are all that is left of our ancestors, and they are how we connect with our past and ensure that we continue into the future.

[FYQIT President Mike Jackson, 2016]

The grant, entitled “Archaeology and Oral Histories along the Lower Gila River in Southwestern Arizona, 600–1830 AD” (RZ-255760-17), proposed to couple the documentation of petroglyphs, geoglyph, ancestral villages, and Indigenous trails along the lower Gila with new ethnographic contributions from the collaborating Tribes. Cultural advisors from the collaborating Tribes assisted in selecting which sites to visit and document, and they reviewed, revised, and ultimately approved the grant application before it was submitted. Importantly, funds were allocated to compensate Tribal members for contributing their time and expertise to both the archaeological and ethnographic fieldwork (Figure 5). Despite a major impediment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as explained below, the collaborators’ participation followed through the entire project, and they remain involved in shaping the dissemination plan and archiving of data. Once completed, the final report on the project’s documentation of 277 archaeological sites, many of which contain rock imagery, will be reviewed by the collaborating Tribes. It will not be formally complete and submitted until it receives their approval. Moreover, data and interpretations of findings will not be shared without their authorization, in accordance with federal agency policy implemented in the course of the LGREAP, as elaborated below.

Here, in the context of Indigenous archaeology, this discussion focuses on the fieldwork dimension. There was no training prerequisite for Tribal members to be employed on the LGREAP, only an interest and willingness to participate. Educational requirements, including a field school, are generally required for entry-level positions in archaeology and cultural heritage management in the US. This poses a significant hurdle for members of Indigenous communities to find employment in this sector at the most elementary level since young adults identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native have historically maintained the lowest college enrollment and graduation rates of any other demographic group measured (NCES 2025). The Tribal employment component of the LGREAP was intended to help overcome this social barrier by providing Indigenous persons paid practical experiences in the field, which they could leverage for future educational and employment opportunities.

The LGREAP study area was remote, and accommodations were nonexistent—crew members required the capability to camp for four days at a time. This is a tough ask of anyone, let alone members of Indigenous communities who often have family responsibilities that complicate extended durations away from home. Recruitment in the early phase of the project was difficult as a result, but eventually, with the assistance of the FYQIT Cultural Committee, community members began showing interest in the opportunity. Ultimately, seven members of the FYQIT—three women and four men—participated in fieldwork during the LGREAP. With such a high level of participation and commitment to the project, productivity was exceptional. During three seasons of fieldwork, the collaborators documented more than 40,000 petroglyphs, over 100 geoglyphs, scores of Indigenous trails, and dozens of Hohokam and Patayan settlements (Figure 6). The project provided Indigenous participants with professional experience in archaeological survey, site documentation, and petroglyph recordation (Figure 7, Figure 8, Figure 9 and Figure 10).

The tail-end of the LGREAP field program dovetailed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Facing a significant data management issue with more than 40,000 petroglyphs inventoried during the LGREAP and wanting to keep the FYQIT field assistants engaged and employed yet needing social distance to ensure public safety, the author applied for and received a follow-up NEH Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) grant (RJ-274018). The grant, “Indigenous Petroglyphs as Social Networks,” supported the development of the Southern Arizona Rock Imagery Archive (SARIA), a clearinghouse and database for petroglyph inventories, including that generated through the LGREAP. Over six months, the FYQIT field assistants worked remotely yet collectively via videoconference technology to populate the database, beginning with LGREAP data (Figure 11).

Significant to the subject at hand, the development of the SARIA required the formulation of an ontology to organize and structure petroglyph data from LGREAP, but in a manner that could inter-relate with data from other projects carried out by other researchers and at different times in the past, and with varying levels of detail and control. This ontology has roots in a standard petroglyph typology used widely across western North America, in which motifs are differentiated and categorized according to qualities of their general form (i.e., circle designs, zoomorphic designs, etc.). First pioneered by Heizer and Baumhoff (1962), this typology has been employed, expanded, and adapted for southern Arizona through a series of major rock imagery analyses (e.g., Bruder 1983; Ferg 1979; Martynec and Martynec 2008; Wallace 1983, 1989; Wallace and Holmlund 1986; Wright 2014). It is thus entrenched in a traditional archaeological paradigm and practice. When adapted for SARIA, the Tribal assistants who participated in the LGREAP fieldwork critically evaluated this baseline typology in an effort to see if and how it aligned with their understanding of petroglyphs and what the petroglyphs may signify. For example, the team determined that circular forms with linear protrusions (i.e., “tailed circles”), series of abutting triangles (i.e., “triangle chains”), and arrangements of rhombuses (i.e., “diamond patterns”) should be culled out at motifs potentially related to the Yuman dream experience (White 2020), an analytical and interpretive decision that the baseline typology did not afford. In developing the SARIA ontology, collaborators brought their personal histories, cultural backgrounds, and recent LGREAP experiences to the fore and collectively developed a petroglyph ontology that captured the salient information in ways that seemed appropriate and useful for everyone involved, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

Although LGREAP has come and gone, the Tribal collaboration at its foundation continues. One way this is apparent is through the sharing in publication authorship and presentation of the project’s findings. Near the end of the project, the author organized an issue of Archaeology Southwest Magazine in which collaborators related their experiences on the project and explained its significance to their community (Wright 2020). Two of the Tribal field assistants shared their experience and its significance to them and their Tribe at the Sonoran Symposium in 2022, their first opportunity at public speaking outside their community. Moreover, most recently, the author published the first peer-reviewed article on the LGREAP findings co-authored with Lorey Cachora, a Quechan elder and cultural advisor he met in 2016 during the Great Bend of the Gila advocacy campaign and with whom he continues to share information. Cachora (1994, 2000; see also Trafzer 2012) has lectured and written exhaustively about Yuman creation, spirituality, metaphysics, and landscape connectivity, and he is therefore uniquely suited for situating the project’s findings within a traditional Yuman worldview. Integrating Indigenous narratives and understandings of the world with archaeological research is a key tenet of Indigenous archaeology, and it can provide new and refreshing ways to frame the archaeological record and ultimately understand and appreciate the past. The Yuman dream experience is critical for not only explaining the lower Gila’s interwoven nexus of trails, villages, petroglyphs, and geoglyphs but also for understanding the landscape’s sacred qualities in ways otherwise unapparent to non-Indigenous persons (Wright et al. 2024).

5. Discussion

What distinguishes the LGREAP from most other rock imagery research programs is its deliberate incorporation of Indigenous peoples from beginning to end. Unlike the “consultant” model developed by early anthropologists and perpetuated to this day, wherein Indigenous persons are brought in near the end, and their involvement is moderated and generally limited to interpretation of a project’s findings (or, in the case of rock imagery, the “meaning” of marks and signs), the LGREAP centered Indigenous communities in each phase of the research process. In fact, the project arose from a mutually shared interest among Indigenous collaborators and non-governmental organizations in protecting a sacred cultural landscape described as the Great Bend of the Gila (the advocacy campaign) and doing so by virtue of learning more about the region’s complex history and its rich and fragile material legacy (the research effort). Doing research with Indigenous communities in ways of their choosing and for their benefit are hallmark principles of Indigenous archaeology. The LGREAP—which involved non-Indigenous researchers partnering with Indigenous communities in order to circumvent traditional barriers to archaeological practice, foster inclusive archaeology that values Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, and better stewarding ancestral Tribal lands—attests to the utility and practicality of Tribal collaboration in doing Indigenous archaeology.

The LGREAP is now a page in history. While much of the project remains to be reported, it is now possible to reflect on the model of Tribal collaboration employed through consideration once more of the four kinship values. Below is a selection of examples of how those values shaped the project and continue to shape the collaborators.

5.1. Relationships

With regard to Tribal collaboration, the relationship value emphasizes that interactions should be more than mere transactions. They involve transparent communication and may necessitate means of conflict resolution when disagreements arise. The LGREAP was built upon relationships among collaborators that were forged through the Great Bend of the Gila advocacy campaign. Understandably, the nature of those relationships varied across Tribes. Some communities wanted an active, participatory role in the project’s implementation, while others only requested periodic updates. Some required permits to work with community members, while others did not. Over the decade since, those relationships have naturally changed—key individuals have come and gone, political dynamics have shifted, and the COVID-19 pandemic put in-person communication on hold for several years.

The pandemic proved to be a significant hurdle to the project and the relationships upon which it was built. While the US Center for Disease Control recommended social distancing as a means for preventing the spread of COVID-19, each Tribe collaborating on the LGREAP obligated this measure by issuing stay-at-home orders for its citizenry. This complicated the logistics of fieldwork, and it completely curtailed the ethnographic research component of the project. While the LGREAP field team was fortunate to continue fieldwork and later the SARIA database development via videoconferencing, interfacing with Tribal authorities was stymied by the prolonged stay-at-home orders and the Tribes’ relative lack of telecommunication infrastructure and capacity. Communication with Tribal advisors and governing bodies essentially ceased for the remainder of the LGREAP grant cycle.

Still, the LGREAP relationships endure because of shared values, mutual respect, and ongoing communication, albeit punctuated and at times difficult. Relationships with the FYQIT field assistants persist, but in new ways (Figure 12). For instance, one continues to work with Archaeology Southwest in petroglyph-related fieldwork, while the other is now on the FYQIT tribal council and thus interacts with partners in a completely different capacity. At the Tribal level, each community is still invested in protecting the Great Bend of the Gila, and similar conservation agendas around traditional lands, though now Tribally led, have emerged in California, such as the recent Chuckwalla and Kw’tsán National Monument efforts and in Nevada with the recently established Avi Kwa Ame National Monument (Wright 2022). Changes in relationships should be anticipated; the critical factor is that they adapt positively and persist.

5.2. Responsibility

The responsibility value underscores that archaeological practice can often have real-world impacts on Indigenous and otherwise descendant communities, sometimes deliberate but often unexpected. One of the principal challenges faced during the LGREAP was the potential for the disclosure of site location information and the negligent disclosure of guarded cultural knowledge. The rock imagery along the lower Gila has long been an attraction for visitors, and management of site visitation is a constant concern for both the land management agencies and Tribes (Wright 2018). Unexpectedly, the LGREAP coincided with two significant social factors that exacerbated this issue: the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid adoption of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or “drones”) by outdoor enthusiasts, including rock imagery “tourists”. As people flooded public lands to escape pandemic-imposed isolation, archaeological sites on public land became easy “bucket list” places to visit. Land managers responsible for the LGREAP project area, and throughout the western US broadly, reported unprecedented spikes in urban tourism to remote rock imagery sites accompanied by an increase in vandalism (Yates et al. 2022, p. 388).

Soon, social media and online video platforms were awash in tourist photographs and videos, often with offensive commentary, disclosing the locations of sacred sites in the LGREAP project area, including rock imagery. LGREAP personnel received periodic solicitations for information on how to access particular sites, all of which were declined. In reviewing social media, project personnel learned that individuals were using photographs and illustrations from Great Bend of the Gila advocacy publications to locate rock imagery and other heritage sites, visiting those places, and then sharing their “achievements” online in a sort of competitive game of petroglyph “bagging”. In an effort to better safeguard site locations and respect the rock imagery, the LGREAP and the broader Great Bend of the Gila advocacy campaign, in dialogue with collaborators, adopted a non-disclosure policy where photography of rock imagery would not be hosted online or published in any format without prior approval from partnering Tribes. Shortly thereafter, the Arizona State Office of the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the agency responsible for most of the sites within the LGREAP project area, formally implemented a Tribal authorization policy requiring permittees to seek Tribes’ free and informed consent to use and distribute information pertaining to their ancestral sites on BLM-administered land—including publishing photos of rock imagery in all formats. Archaeology Southwest has since adopted this policy to their general communications plan and implemented it across their social media and publication platforms.

5.3. Reciprocity

The relationships underscoring the LGREAP fostered a remarkable degree of reciprocity among collaborators. This includes the opportunities for co-authorship and presentation noted above, where Tribal partners helped define and retain control over the narrative. Public audiences were most receptive to learning about the project and its findings from members of the descendant communities participating in the research. In those contexts, the experiences and perspectives of Tribal partners were put on par with, if not elevated, compared with those of “professional” archaeologists. Their story work (sensu Archibald et al. 2019) relating to their personal pathways to the LGREAP and involvement in archaeological research on their ancestors balanced and humanized emerging narratives on the project’s findings and their significance. It was the coupling of archaeological rigor with cultural awareness and openness to Indigenous understandings of the material record that fostered a holistic understanding of the region’s rock imagery (Wright et al. 2024). In hindsight, data excited the archaeologists and land managers while connection, sense of being, and harmony motivated the Tribal partners—it was the shared goal of better understanding and protecting the landscape that aligned these otherwise disparate experiences.

The true measure of these relationships is that the reciprocity at hand grew to encompass matters beyond LGREAP. Notable exchanges include when the author accompanied a delegation of the FYQIT to a meeting of the Keepers of the River, a partnership of Colorado River Tribes organized to increase their influence on the management of the river. The Elder Coordinator for District 7 of the GRIC, “Maricopa Colony,” invited the author to attend the annual Five Tries Treaty of Peace Celebration, which celebrates an enduring truce established in 1863 among once-warring Yuman and O’Odham Tribes, all of whom draw heritage value from the Lower Gila River. Additionally, most recently, the author was invited to a symposium entitled “Toward Reconciling Differing Views of Yavapai Origins,” organized and sponsored by the YPIT. These reciprocities nurtured the LGREAP collaboration, facilitated communication, and built trust among the partnering communities that persisted through the project and afterward.

5.4. Redistribution

In addition to reciprocity among partners, Tribal collaborations should work to benefit the Indigenous communities in enduring ways that transcend individual projects. This is perhaps where the LGREAP excelled. Between the two NEH grants, more than USD 200,000 was filtered into the FYQIT through compensation to Tribal field assistants. This enabled them to support themselves and their families through the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic when many people were laid off or furloughed. Several news organizations sought interviews with the Tribal field assistants as well, which provided avenues for them to share their views and relate how the subject matter, the collaborative work, and the conservation goals were priorities for them and their community (Delgado 2021; Furmansky 2022). Moreover, the Tribal field assistants were invited for two consecutive years to present their participation in the LGREAP at events honoring Native American Heritage Month at Arizona Western College. In this way, the LGREAP was a conduit through which they participated in community growth and celebration.

Most importantly, though, the LGREAP built capacity in the Tribal field assistants, who have since leveraged their experiences to advance themselves and their community. As noted above, one is now a skilled archaeological technician who is professionally employed in the cultural resource management industry despite not having a college degree or participating in an archaeological field school. In addition, another now holds an elected office in Tribal governance, where he is actively involved in cultural heritage matters, including efforts to safeguard ancestral territories from unfettered development. Both individuals were transformed by the Great Bend of the Gila advocacy campaign and the LGREAP in ways that they carry forward and give back to their community.

5.5. Respect

Reflection on the four kinship values, and specifically how they foster equity, trust, honesty, and transparency among collaborators, brings forth a fifth “R”—respect. As an Indigenous kinship value, respect entails deliberate listening to others, especially elders, with humility and a willingness to accept their experience, story, and point of view as valid and equal (Bishop 2023). Respect runs through each of the kinship values since it is about intentionality and purpose as to how one relates to others, both human and other-than-human (Menzies et al. 2024, p. 2114). The four Rs instill respect for the communities participating in a collaborative framework since Indigenous archaeology is as much about the people involved and engaged with the research as it is about the material and landscape being studied. Moreover, respect for land and all living entities is a value shared among Indigenous communities worldwide. This, of course, includes heritage places, but Indigenous archaeology extends this value to the ancestral objects and images that reside therein.

This holistic approach, where respect is given to self, others, and the subject of study, is what Supernant and colleagues (2020) imply by “heart-centered archaeological practice”. Respecting the past with one’s heart oriented toward the people whose past is at stake can turn traditional archaeology on its head. Archaeological sites and artifacts can no longer be regarded as “cultural resources” that, similar to natural resources, only have value when they are extracted and consumed. Instead, they are precious heritage assets whose value and significance derive from their perpetual existence and ongoing connection to living, descendant communities.

6. Conclusions

Antiquarianism and archaeology, specifically, are historical disciplines forged in a not-too-distant era of European settler colonialism, where Indigenous communities the world over were subjected to modes of exploitation for the benefit of largely Western European societies. Since then, the histories about Indigenous peoples that found their way into popular discourse have been largely written by non-Indigenous researchers and for non-Indigenous audiences, and generally, with little to no regard for the well-being of descendant communities. Over the past half-century, however, archaeologists have increasingly come to accept the discipline’s troubled history and growingly acknowledge the limits of Western science, yet until recently, archaeology has been slow to confront these dilemmas head-on and escape the confines of its creation.

The rise of Indigenous archaeology over the past three decades has been a conscious and deliberate theoretical and social movement aimed at rectifying archaeology’s traditional exclusion of Indigenous and otherwise descendant communities from research. The movement aims to recenter these communities as benefactors of such research, owners of the heritage, and authors of the resulting narratives. Respectful collaborations between Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous researchers have proven to be an effective means of achieving some of the movement’s objectives.

The study of rock imagery has a long record of incorporating Indigenous perspectives in the interpretation of signs. Few projects, however, have fully incorporated Indigenous communities in research concerning their ancestral rock imagery. The traditional “consultant” model simply asks descendants to interpret the imagery under the premise that they have the requisite knowledge and are willing to divulge such information to others. Whether or not those conditions are met, only recently have researchers begun to coordinate with Indigenous communities to design projects that prioritize issues of concern and interest to the local communities.

The LGREAP was among a small but growing number of rock imagery research programs wherein Tribes contribute to the research program from beginning to end and where Indigenous perspectives help shape project design, implementation, and results. Partnerships built on Indigenous kinship values of relationship, responsibility, reciprocity, and redistribution offer avenues for inclusive research into rock imager that align with the principles and tenets of Indigenous archaeology. This is critical to the future of research into and conservation of rock imagery. Collaborative efforts that coalesce diverse views, values, and agendas around shared goals will be necessary to mediate the mounting, myriad forces—physical, cultural, administrative, and political—that threaten fragile cultural assets such as rock imagery and Indigenous cultural heritage more broadly, now and into the foreseeable future.