CRM Alum Contributes Widely to American Archaeology
Michael Newland graduated from Sonoma State’s Cultural Resources Management M.A. program in 2000. Since that time, he has helped transform the discipline of archaeology with his efforts in public outreach and tribal consultation, and research and advocacy on climate change. After working as a staff archaeologist at SSU’s Anthropological Studies Center for 20 years, and as a Director for Environmental Science Associates, he recently became a Principal Investigator at Alta Archaeological Consulting in Santa Rosa. Mike is a past president of the Society of California Archaeology and continues to serve the society as Co-Chairman of the Climate Change and California Archaeology Committee, which he founded. He also serves on a national team advising the Society for American Archaeology's Executive Board on climate change and the threats it poses to our nation's cultural heritage.
Tribal consultation and collaborative projects have been another focus for Mike. For example, he recently worked with several tribes on behalf of the state Department of Water Resources to have the entire 800,000 acres of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta declared a single Tribal Cultural Resource - a historic achievement. He also co-authored (along with several tribal scholars) a 2017 chapter on tribal issues and climate change in Public Archaeology and Climate Change. Mike is co-founder and principal lead on an emergency response team that recovers human cremations from residences destroyed by wildfire in California and Oregon. The team has been featured in National Geographic Online, National Public Radio, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. For this work, the team received the 2020 President’s Award from the Society for California Archaeology.
Since his graduation from Sonoma State, Mike has continued to engage with the University, delivering guest lectures, serving on webinar panels, and sitting on MA thesis committees for CRM MA students.