Click this link to listen to Season 3 Episode 22 featuring Dr. Wade Campbell (Diné, Navajo Nation citizen).

This episode of Native Circles, with co-hosts Dr. Davina Two Bears and Dr. Farina King, features a conversation with Dr. Wade Campbell on Indigenous archaeology, Diné (Navajo) deep history, and how Diné communities have navigated relationships with ancient sites, land, and story over generations. Wade reflects on growing up in the Four Corners, reconciling Diné teachings with archaeological practice, and why he approaches ruins and ancestral places with respect rather than fear. He discusses his work on 18th-century Diné defensive sites, the importance of recognizing mobile Indigenous lifeways in the historical record, and how archaeology, oral history, and community knowledge together illuminate longer-term Diné histories that stretch far beyond the written archive. 

Dr. Wade Campbell (Diné, Kinyaa’áanii and Bilagáanaa) is an assistant professor of Archaeology and Anthropology at Boston University. His research traces the historical relationships between Diné communities and other local groups in the US Southwest, including the Pueblos, Spanish, and Americans. Wade is engaged with a range of questions related to patterns of Diné settlement and economic activity across the greater Four Corners region, with a particular focus on incipient Indigenous pastoralism and related shifts in land-use, social organization, and diet/subsistence practices.

Resources:

Wade Campbell, assistant professor of archaeology and anthropology, Boston University webpage.

The Four Heavens: A New History of the Ancient Maya (2026) by David Stuart (see https://www.thefourheavens.com/)

Becoming Hopi: A History, co-edited by Wesley Bernardini, Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, Gregson Schachner, and Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma (University of Arizona Press, 2023).

Campbell, Wade, Thompson, K. F., & Begay, R. M. (2021). “Naasgo: Moving Forward—Diné Archaeology in the Twenty-First Century.” Kiva, 87 (3), 253–267. https://doi.org/10.1080/00231940.2021.1951553

Campbell, Wade. (2024). “Collaborating with Diné communities: Reconsidering the ‘pueblito’ through a Diné-oriented archaeological lens.” Archaeology Southwest Magazine, 36 (3&4), 24–27.

“Wade Campbell: Diné Pastoral Landscapes: A Lens on Power & Equity in the US Southwest” YouTube video (2023).