Anthropology Tour of the Yampa River
In Dinosaur National Monument
It is a story of place – where people lived and how they lived. It is a story of language histories, the mingling of peoples, indigenes and immigrants, and the transformations that arise from interaction both cooperation and conflict. It is a story of cultural resilience, persistence, and changing sense of place. – Simms
2025 Anthropology Trip
Yampa River
5 days
June 29th – July 3rd
$1,699 per adult
$1,599 per youth
Professor Steve Simms joins ARTA for 71 miles down the legendary Yampa River canyon in Dinosaur National Monument. But this trip isn’t about the miles traveled but, the stories told. Sorties of over 700 generations of Indigenous Americans in a cultural landscape centered on, but much more extensive than, Great Salt Lake. From Nevada, across Utah and Idaho, northwestern Colorado to central Wyoming. Stories that challenge the Pristine Myth, the cultural bias that Indigenous peoples were timeless, changeless children of Nature. And the myth that America was sparsely populated. A story centered on the Indigenous perspective tempers popular wisdom about ancient Native American history. It is a story far deeper in time than any modern genealogy can trace.
Join us as we uncover old stories, share our stories, and create new ones together.
Meet Steven Simms
He literally wrote the book.
Steven R. Simms is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Utah State University where he taught from 1988. He also taught at Weber State College and the University of Utah. His fields of study are the paleosciences: climate, ecology, adaptation, evolution. He conducted archaeological field work across the United States and in the Middle East for 50 years, guiding undergraduate students on hundreds of field trips. Simms authored over 100 scientific publications. He directed over 60 archaeological projects, including the Great Salt Lake Wetlands Project 1990 – 93, He was President of the Great Basin Anthropological Association and the Utah Professional Archaeological Council.
His books include Ancient Peoples of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau (2008), and Traces of Fremont: Society and Rock Art in Ancient Utah (2010) awarded the Society for American Archaeology Book award in the public audience category and the Utah Book Award for nonfiction. His new book was published in October 2023: First Peoples of Great Salt Lake: A Cultural Landscape from Nevada to Wyoming and was awarded the Don D. and Catherine S. Fowler Prize. Since childhood he has hiked the mountains and deserts of the American West and slept on the ground nearly a thousand nights; nurturing a contentment with social distancing. In retirement he lives with his partner Judy Nelson, a ceramicist and artist at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains in Story, Wyoming.
“The professional approach of the staff, along with the river itself, made for a trip of a lifetime”