Archaeological field work conducted at the Old Leupp site in 2024.
On Saturday, July 19, the Old Leupp Community Accountable Archaeology Project, led by Davina Two Bears (Arizona State University), Jun Sunseri (UC Berkeley), and Koji Lau-Ozawa (UCLA), will launch its 2025 archaeological field season with a Community Day.
The project seeks to use low-impact archaeological methods to understand the Old Leupp site in northeastern Arizona on Navajo Nation land that was used both as a federal Indian boarding school and as a citizen isolation center to imprison Japanese Americans during World War II.
The project team is conducting its second year of field work on the site, employing a range of archaeological methods including drones, ground-penetrating radar, and surface survey.
The Community Day invites members of the Diné and Japanese American communities for a day of learning about the history and archaeology of the Old Leupp site. The day’s schedule commences at 7:30 a.m. (DST) on site and continues to 3 p.m. There will be a tour of the site, presentations and discussions by researchers and community members, and a reception with food.
The site of Old Leupp is located approximately 50 miles northeast of Flagstaff, Ariz. on the Navajo Nation reservation. Participants in the Community Day are advised to bring plenty of water and sun protection with temperatures expected to reach the high 90s to low 100s.
In anticipation of the weather conditions, shade canopies and water will be present on site, and the latter half of the event, including the lunch reception, will take place indoors in at the First Presbyterian Church of Leupp.
This year’s Community Day will be followed by a week of archaeological field work led by the project team alongside students from UC Berkeley.
Interested participants can sign up online until Friday, July 11: https://forms.gle/oBX4YXzoP3Nud3n29
For more information on the event, contact any of the project co-directors:
Koji Lau-Ozawa: khozawa2@ucla.edu; (650) 224-4355
Davina Two Bears: Davina.Two.Bears@asu.edu; (480) 727-2177
Jun Sunseri: jsunseri@berkeley.edu