All News
October 24, 2024

Protecting Indigenous Heritage in an Age of Climate Vulnerability

A preservation plan being developed by Weitzman researchers in consultation with local stewards conserves a millennium of human settlement.

By A. Paul Rose and Bea Huff Hunter
Adobe structure in partial ruin in the desert at dusk
Wupatki Pueblo, north of Flagstaff, Arizona, is among the villages built by Native peoples in the desert Southwest centuries ago. “We look at those sites as still alive, as offering us the opportunity to connect with our ancestors and to continue the work, and legacy of that work, of communing with that place,” says Chas Robles, ALCC's executive director. (Photo Colin Cohan [MSHP'23])
Expand Image
Close
Previous
Next
Adobe structure in partial ruin in the desert at dusk
Wupatki Pueblo, north of Flagstaff, Arizona, is among the villages built by Native peoples in the desert Southwest centuries ago. “We look at those sites as still alive, as offering us the opportunity to connect with our ancestors and to continue the work, and legacy of that work, of communing with that place,” says Chas Robles, ALCC's executive director. (Photo Colin Cohan [MSHP'23])
Areas

Related

Tags
Media Contact

Michael Grant
mrgrant@design.upenn.edu
215.898.2539

Between the Painted Desert and the ponderosa highlands of northern Arizona lies Wupatki National Monument, a landscape of rare desert grasslands, mesas, and volcanic hills. Nestled within it are villages built by Native peoples centuries ago. Despite years of change, they still stand on land that the ancestors of the Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, Yavapai, Havasupai, Hualapai, and several bands of Apache and Paiute, have called home for millenia. Yet today, climate change threatens this ancient and extraordinary place.

In 2021, the Center for Architectural Conservation (CAC) at Weitzman received a $1.3 million grant from the Getty Foundation to respond to new risks facing Wupatki Pueblo, the Monument’s largest architectural structure, which dates back to the 11th century. Frank Matero, founder and director of CAC and Gonick Family Professor and chair of historic preservation, led the project alongside partners from Ancestral Lands Conservancy Corps, the National Parks Service (NPS), and the University of Minho, Portugal. In consultation with the Indigenous communities who have protected and valued the site for centuries, they developed a preservation plan set for publication in December 2024, which coincides with the Monument’s 100th anniversary. The plan supports longstanding efforts to preserve this historic location for current and future generations and for the past generations recognized by the affiliated Tribal groups as still inhabiting it today.

Under Matero’s direction, the CAC has long studied climate vulnerability for historic sites. Climate change interweaves complex and dynamic biophysical, geographic, and social challenges, all visible at Wupatki. Extreme weather, linked to climate change, impacts Wupatki Pueblo and its caretakers. A rainstorm in 2022 brought over an inch of rain in just five minutes, highlighting erosion threats and preservation needs. Rising temperatures also pose health risks for conservation workers.

Climate change risks for Flagstaff include hotter summers and more rainfall

Source: Flagstaff Climate Action and Adaptation Plan 

“Traditionally, we do a lot of our preservation work in the summer, but now that it's getting so much hotter, we need to rethink when we do our work and also how we do it so that we're doing work that is going to hold up in the changing climate,” says NPS’s Amy Horn, cultural resources program manager for Flagstaff Area National Monuments.

As new and unpredictable environmental stressors emerge, the CAC focuses on anticipating preservation needs rather than reacting. The Getty grant enabled Matero to apply and develop that model of climate risk assessment.

“We saw it as an opportunity to keep working on the idea of what vulnerability looks like. I can’t think of a more vulnerable site as site types go. Vulnerability assessment means shifting the focus from what is needed now to the future and what can be done in the short and the long term to reduce the loss, to move to a more sustainable management model,” says Matero.

This model brings scientific research on climate change’s impact on the physical environment into dialogue with the socio-cultural context of an inhabited place. The people and communities that value a location are key to a sustainable model for preserving sites like Wupatki.

The rights and values of Indigenous people were not respected in 1924 when Wupatki National Monument first came under the charge of the National Park Service. However, that relationship changed dramatically after the year 2000 when consultation with Native Tribes became law. “This kind of consultation between a federal land manager and Native Tribes goes back decades,” says Ian Hough, an architecture preservation specialist with NPS. “So we leveraged those relationships in this project to consult with Indigenous communities.” Even in the early planning stages, Matero and his team recognized the value present in the strong relationship between NPS and the multiple Indigenous communities traditionally affiliated with the location.  

Three people with surveying equipment outdoors

The Center for Architectural Conservation's John Hinchman, Qianhui Ni, and Colin Cohan laser scanning the Wupatki Pueblo (Photo Ha Leem Ro)

The code of ethics governing conservation work draws inspiration from medicine, including the principle of “do no harm” and respect for the patient’s autonomy. Accordingly, the consultation process with associated tribes guided the project, and a major principle emerged: “Any ancestral site should be manipulated as little as possible,” Matero says, “and natural processes should be allowed to progress without interruption or by using extraordinary means.”

Paulo Lourenço, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Minho in Portugal who worked with Matero on the project, put this principle into action. Instead of drilling into the Pueblo walls to collect and analyze core samples—considered a violation of the living site—his engineering team built a replica wall to study the structural performance of Wupatki’s stone and earthen mortar construction systems.

Conventional architectural conservation uses durable synthetic materials, such as epoxy-based amendments and polyester microfibers. However, these materials can shed into the surrounding environment, where wildlife consumes them, and they are nearly impossible to remove. The engineers explored local plant and animal-based alternatives, including soil, psyllium husk, and gelatin, to strengthen traditional clay mortars. They are interested in developing more sustainable and culturally appropriate materials.

Generations come together at Wupatki Pueblo, and the Weitzman project became another part of this history of exchange. Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps coordinated with NPS to employ Zuni young people in the preservation work.

“We look at those sites as still alive, as offering us the opportunity to connect with our ancestors and to continue the work, and legacy of that work, of communing with that place,” says Chas Robles, ALCC’s executive director. “It’s a powerful experience for young folks to reconnect to these culturally significant places and spaces. Their ancestors were the original designers, builders, and engineers of these places, and now they go and continue that legacy.” One of ALCC’s program managers, Kevin Cooeyate, was featured in a special episode of Getty’s cultural heritage podcast ReCurrent devoted to Wupatki.

Two people work on adobe wall

Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps crew members Tylana Poblano and Keanna Waatsa repointing mortar joints in the Community Room at Wupatki Pueblo (Photo courtesy Kevin Cooeyate and the Zuni office of Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps)

Weitzman’s Ha Leem Ro (MSHP’21), a research associate at the CAC, considers it uniquely beneficial to participate in diverse and intergenerational conversations about heritage. Ro began working at Wupatki as a graduate student in the Department of Historic Preservation and now serves as its project manager. “As a younger person just starting out, it means a lot as there are so many groups of people involved in a single site. I'm new to all this. I’m learning. Not just from my professors, but also getting to know what other people value in a site,” she says.

The forthcoming report, Preservation Management Plan for Wupatki Pueblo, will share what has been learned. Presenting the Pueblo’s architectural history alongside its cultural value and significance, it evaluates Wupatki’s vulnerabilities to the changing climate and responds with treatment and management strategies for the Pueblo’s masonry and surrounding site. The project includes a flexible toolkit designed to enable NPS to anticipate and manage future climate risks to Wupatki, one that may inform work at similar sites.

Matero says that the goal of conservation cannot be to stop change: “Our job is to manage change in a way that is scientifically sound and respectful and responsive to Indigenous cultures.”

What is most important for a place like Wupatki is that it remains valuable and vital for the communities most connected to it while it exists. As the Wupatki National Monument Centennial approaches, the partnerships forged there over decades and strengthened through this three-year engagement will help sustain those connections into the future.

More News