Pete Reser joined NEW Solutions as an archaeologist in June 2023 and is working at Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His role is to monitor ground disturbance on a trail construction project. In that role, he identifies and protects any archaeological or paleontological material that might be uncovered during the construction work. He has been a volunteer at the park for over a decade, and they were able to bring him on as an ESP enrollee to utilize his lifetime of expertise.
Besides the 17 miles or so of petroglyphs, there are many cultural objects within the boundaries of Petroglyph National Monument. As a construction monitor, Pete watches the cutting edge of both heavy equipment and hand-held shovels as they cut beneath the surface of the earth. He must move along with the machines and workers as they dig so he can see each layer of the ground as it is exposed. Many times during construction, the uppermost surface of bones and artifacts are first seen just below the surface, and digging activity must be paused to prevent further damage. Having a trained and experienced person watching around motorized equipment, who recognizes these objects turned up during digging and can initiate the agreed upon methods to protect them and mitigate further damage, is required on our public lands.
One pair of eyes cannot see everything, so effectiveness in archaeological/paleontological monitoring depends on rapport and communication with everybody on the crew. Pete has been building that rapport with the bilingual construction crew, and everyone on the construction crew helped to monitor alongside him. Fortunately, during this construction project no artifacts were discovered, but the presence of a monitor ensured that regulations were followed and provided assurance that no damage or data loss occurred.
During his career, Pete was a museum technician at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, the University of New Mexico, and Petrified Forest National Park, spending several months a year out in the field finding and recovering fossils, and the rest of the year processing them in the lab for research, exhibits, and to use conservation methods to prevent deterioration as they were stored in the museums’ collections. After he retired, he worked on a contract basis with for groups that provided experienced personnel to construction companies that build pipelines, roads, power lines, and other ground-disturbing projects. Projects on public lands are required to have monitors to look for evidence of paleontological or archaeological material turned up by these projects as ground disturbance proceeds.
One of Pete’s favorite parts of this work is that it takes him outside, and as he watches the local earth being opened, he can see the story of the land laid out. There is always the possibility that something not known to exist in this place could turn up. It could be unusual stone tools (a Clovis point was found when the park’s visitor center was built) or bones belonging to an ice age animal not known to range this far south. It is the sort of experience that lets one feel like a part of the geologic neighborhood.
