The Utah archaeological community is in an uproar over the abrupt firing earlier this week of Kevin Jones, Utah's state archaeologist, and two of his colleagues.
State officials have said that the layoffs came because of budgetary cutbacks mandated by the legislature, but many preservationists and archaeologists believe that the dismissals were targeted on an office that has been an outspoken champion of archaeological sites threatened by high-profile development projects.
The three scientists who lost their jobs were the heart of the five-person Antiquities Section lodged within the state's Division of State History. They helped enforce archaeological compliance laws, recorded ancient sites and human remains discovered on state and private lands, built a network of volunteer stewardship, and performed educational outreach to schools.
"The program I spent my career building has been destroyed in one fell swoop," said Jones, in a phone interview after the ax fell. He had served as Utah's state archaeologist for 20 years. Assistant State Archaeologist Ronald Rood, also laid off, wrote on an archaeological association message board: "This is a most unfortunate situation since there are human remains left to be analyzed and repatriated, unfinished projects and reports and more than anything, a severe void at State History where archaeological resources are no longer considered to be paramount or significant."
Jones has crossed swords with influential state legislators during his tenure, as written here in a profile of him last year. Rood, when contacted by phone, said that the dismantling of the Antiquities Section "was a culmination of things that have been happening since Range Creek," alluding to his office's sparring with other state agencies over the preservation of a nearly pristine, 1000-year-old settlement discovered in 2002 in central Utah.
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