Office: Dale Hall Tower 505B
Email: bonnie.pitblado@ou.edu
Education: Ph.D., University of Arizona, 1999
I am an archaeologist with interest and expertise in the PaleoIndigenous peopling of the Rocky Mountains and western hemisphere. I work at many scales, from artifact trace-elements, to site-based research in my field area of the Upper Gunnison Basin in Colorado, to inter-hemispheric human mobility. I strive to bring innovative, sometimes even radical, interdisciplinary approaches to my research in ways designed to celebrate and elevate the humanity of deep-time ancestors. Another scholarly focus involves the democratization of archaeology and heritage with the goal of increasing archaeology’s accessibility to anyone wishing to practice it. I study and seek systems-level interventions that can facilitate long-term change within a discipline that has historically excluded many groups of people, from those of Indigenous descent to contemporary farmers and ranchers with artifact collections they would like to share with scholars. Through the Oklahoma Public Archaeology Network, which I co-founded in 2016 and have directed since then, I offer students at all stages (K-12 to PhD) and from all backgrounds space to learn and practice community-engaged and public archaeology. For details, visit okpan.org.
Pitblado, Bonnie L. 2014. An Argument for Ethical, Proactive, Archaeologist – Artifact Collector Collaboration. American Antiquity 79(3):385-400.
Pitblado, Bonnie L. 2017. The Role of the Rockies in the Peopling of North America. Quaternary International 461:54-79.
Pitblado, Bonnie L., Delaney Cooley, Bobi Deere, Meghan Dudley, Allison McLeod, Kaylyn Moore, and Horvey Palacios. 2023. The Oklahoma Public Archaeology Network (OKPAN): Leveraging University Resources to Serve Historically Excluded Communities. Advances in Archaeological Practice 11(3):314-327.
Pitblado, Bonnie L., Molly B. Cannon, Hector Neff, Carol M. Dehler, and Stephen T. Nelson. 2013. LA-ICP-MS Analysis of Quartzite from the Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado. Journal of Archaeological Science 40(3):1339–1359.
Pitblado, Bonnie L., Suzie Thomas, Anna Wessman, and Sophie Woodward. 2025. Retheorizing “Artefacts” as “Belongings.” Archaeologies 21:209-229.
