Archaeology has long captivated the American public, yet pop culture mythology often obscures the harsh realities, thrilling discoveries, and complex moral decisions that archaeologists confront out in the field. Journalist and conservation archaeologist R. E. Burrillo illuminates the joys and contradictions of digging into humanity’s past: the history of the practice, its evolution into science, the influences of nationalism and colonialism, and its ongoing problems with exploitation and misrepresentation. With rollicking storytelling and an insider’s expertise, Burrillo challenges us to celebrate curiosity even as we rethink what archaeology is, whom it serves, and what’s at stake for our future and our understanding of ourselves as a species.

After an upstate New York childhood and a bartending stint in New Orleans’ French Quarter, seasonal resort work led R. E. Burrillo to the desert Southwest, whose redrock landscapes were a source of stability through mental and physical illness. In The Backwoods of Everywhere, archaeologist Burrillo excavates his past, examining Indigenous and tourist cultures, the complexities of American archaeology, and what it means to be a local. From the ancient canal systems of Phoenix, Arizona, to the modern Mayan communities of the Yucatan Peninsula, to the depths of the Grand Canyon, Burrillo brings readers on an entertaining romp chock-full of history, ecology, cultural preservation, and personal stories.

ForeWord Reviews Editor’s Choice Award Winner for Nonfiction

For more than twelve thousand years, the redrock landscape of southeastern Utah has shaped the lives of everyone who calls it home. R. E. Burrillo takes readers on a journey of discovery through the stories and controversies that make this place so unique, from traces of its earliest inhabitants through its role in shaping the study of archaeology itself—and into the modern battle over its protection.