On this month’s episode, Jessica speaks with Dr. Neyooxet Greymorning (University of Montana; Departments of Anthropology and Native American Studies) about language rejuvenation. Dr. Greymorning tells the story of his journey into the work of language rejuvenation, as well as his own experiences with Arapaho as a child. He then explains how he developed his rapid language teaching methods based on how children learn and understand language but that would also fit the context of where he would be teaching. Dr. Greymorning describes the incredible language learning of his students using this method, as well as the challenges in getting educators to try to accept the method and the possible outcomes. Ultimately, these challenges led to one aspect of his current work where he is conducting language learning tests with dolphins!

For decades, Monte Verde in southern Chile has been one of the most famous archaeological sites in the Americas. The site was widely accepted as 14,500 years old, making it one of the strongest pieces of evidence for human presence in the Americas before Clovis. But what if that interpretation was wrong?

On this month’s episode, Jessica speaks with Dr. Norma Gregory (founder and director of Nottingham News Centre) about her efforts to document and educate the public on the industrial heritage history of the African diaspora. Dr. Gregory’s work to develop her book on Jamaicans in Nottingham led her to shift her life work to making sure that Black coal mining history got the attention that it deserved. We talk about some of her different efforts to promote this history as well as how all of us can do better public education in our own work. We also talk about her work for the Windrush museum, on Nottingham Carnival heritage, as well as her future dream vision for continuing this work.

On this month’s episode, Jessica checks back in with Aaron Brien (Apsáalooke), who you may remember from Episode 23 on Salish-Kootenai College’s Tribal Historic Preservation Program, Episode 25 on Technology, and episode 41 on Collecting Oral Histories in Indian Country. In the more than 5 years since our last recording, Aaron has moved from being Tribal Historic Preservation Program faculty at Salish-Kootenai College to being the Crow Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. We talk about how that transition happened, the process of reinventing the Crow THPO program, and how the SKC program prepared him for being a THPO. On that note, the podcast Aaron and Dr. Shandin Pete started right before we recorded episode 41 is now called the Tribal Research Specialist podcast and is still going strong! Finally, the third segment focuses on the work the Crow THPO is doing and ongoing challenges as a THPO. We close out by discussing how the second Trump administration affects the work of a THPO and what we should all be doing to support THPOs and the resources they fight for.

After more than 4 years since they recorded Episode 60 (Historical Archaeology for the Future) together, Jessica checks back in with Dr. Ayana Omilade Flewellen (they/she; Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University and Co-Founder of the Society of Black Archaeologists). The two discuss Dr. Flewellen’s move to Stanford, how Dr. Flewellen’s research focus was entirely flipped on its head, and how they came back from that in a creative way. We also discuss the importance of standardizing excavation for future use as legacy collections. Finally, we discussed the oral history work that they are doing with Diving with a Purpose and even as a cultural anthropologist their methodology was one I had never heard of before!

After being part of two panel episodes (Heritage Voices Episode 79: The Intensive NAGPRA Summer Training and Education Program (INSTEP) and Episode 92: The 2024 Updated NAGPRA Regulations, Jessica finally got to sit down with Chance Ward (NAGPRA Collections Specialist at History Colorado; enrolled citizen and tribal member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe) for a one on one episode. During this episode we talk about how Chance first heard about anthropology during his time at Fort Lewis College, his time doing CRM work, and why he chose to switch to Museum Studies. We talked about a couple of projects that are near to his heart, including a workbook for Indigenous young people on CRM, how it affects Tribes, and why it is important to be involved and a couple of papers on the ethical treatment of animal remains. Lastly we talked about his approach in his current position and his advice for how other museum professionals can better work with Tribal Nations.

This Heritage Voices episode features Ms. Betty Kimble and Mr. Howard Clark from Denton, Texas. In Episode 99 with Dr. Maria Franklin, Dr. Alex Menaker, and Doug Boyd, we started talking about the Bolivar Archaeological Project and the excavation of Mr. Tom Cook’s blacksmith shop. For the 100th episode of the Heritage Voices podcast (!), Jessica chats with Ms. Betty Kimble and Mr. Howard Clark who are direct descendants of Mr. Tom Cook. We talk about what it was like learning more about their family history through this project, seeing the artifacts from their ancestor found during the archaeology study, participating in and conducting oral history interviews, and how they have been sharing with the community about this important history. Their family story highlights so many different eras of American history. On that front, we were particularly lucky to have Ms. Betty Kimble share her work in the 1960s working with other mothers on desegregation through the Denton’s Women’s Interracial Fellowship.

This Heritage Voices episode features Dr. Maria Franklin (University of Texas at Austin), Dr. Alex Menaker (Stantec, Inc.), and Doug Boyd (Stantec, Inc.) and is part one of a two part series on the Bolivar Archaeological Project, a collaborative community archaeology project sponsored by the Texas Department of Transportation. In this episode they provide context for the Bolivar Archaeological Project including the Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead project that paved the way for this study. Next, they broke down the different components of the project: Historic research, archaeology, oral history, and community engagement. They described how the different disciplines informed each other and how the lineal descendants and descendant community heavily influenced and contributed to the project throughout. Finally, this episode closes out with a discussion of the archaeology findings, as well as the archaeology of blacksmithing in general. Stay tuned for episode 100 with Mr. Tom Cook’s lineal descendants (who have provided invaluable service to their community in their own right as well), Ms. Betty Kimble and Mr. Howard Clark.

For this episode of Heritage Voices, Jessica Yaquinto speaks with Charlotta Hillerdal (University of Aberdeen), Jaqueline Nalikutaar Cleveland (Native Village of Kwinhagak), Lonny Alaskuk Strunk (Native Village of Kwinhagak), and Alice Watterson (University of Iceland). The team explains how climate change was causing artifacts to erode out on the shoreline, so the Native Village of Quinhagak (Kwinhagak)  requested an archaeological excavation so that their heritage would be documented. They describe how what would happen to those artifacts and how to educate the community and larger public about their heritage remained a constant concern and area of discussion. The team described the process of creating this public education resource and how they conveyed the sense of place and focused on incorporating the language into the digital exhibit.

This Heritage Voices episode features a few members of a session from the 2024 Theoretical Archaeology Group meeting in Santa Fe. Today’s guests included Dr. Lindsay Montgomery (Associate Professor of Anthropology and Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto St. George campus), Dr. Kalani Heinz (Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at California State University Northridge), and Dusti Bridges (Ph.D. Student in Anthropology at Cornell University). We talked about some of the ways their session and the TAG Santa Fe meeting took some different approaches than other conferences and sessions. The three of them then broke down the concept of Indigenous Futurities for Jessica and showed how this concept shows up in different ways across the work that the three of them do. For those of you who are educators, discussions of working with students are also woven throughout this conversation.