Bob Mutaw

Background

About Bob Mutaw

I was raised in the Midwest, which I successfully escaped from by moving to Colorado to pursue graduate degrees in Anthropology at CU Boulder. My first job in Colorado during the summer of 1980 was working on the Dolores Archaeological Project, which was the largest archaeological project in the United States up to that time. The next year, I met my future wife Anne and her two children and we wed in 1986. While a graduate student, and for several years after finishing my Ph.D, also in 1986, I taught Anthropology courses at CU Boulder, CU Denver and Metropolitan State University (at that time it is was just a lowly college). On and off again and then consistently I found myself working in an area that some think of as applied anthropology. That is, using anthropological theory and methods in a way that solves a practical problem facing society. In my case, the problem is Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act that requires federal agencies to take into consideration the effects their undertakings may have on historic properties, which are defined as districts, sites or objects that are listed in, or eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Sometimes, this meant doing archaeological excavations in salvage or exploratory contexts, but usually the work entailed pedestrian survey for any signs of human usage of an area. The largest project I was involved in was the survey of around acres in advance of the construction of Denver International Airport in the 1990s. Our work also included archaeological testing and salvage excavation at several prehistoric sites. After successfully building a regional cultural resources practice for a Fortune 400 company, I started my own business, A&B Cultural Consultants, LLC in 2012.