Nevadans for Cultural Preservation

May 2025

Over the course of three days, nearly 200 Lincoln County students in grades 3–6 participated in guided tours of the Mt. Irish Archaeological District. Led by Alicia Styles, Basin and Range National Monument Manager, and Rayette Martin, Executive Director of Nevadans for Cultural Preservation (NVFCP), students explored two major petroglyph sites during engaging walking tours. On-site experts—including range specialists, biologists, and others—were available to answer questions and share insights throughout the visit.

Each group hiked a portion of the new 1.5-mile trail that loops from the primitive campground through the archaeological sites. After the hike, students returned to the campground for lunch and hands-on learning experiences. These included opportunities to explore cultural artifacts, examine animal skulls and pelts, interact with insect displays, and more.

As part of the experience, students reflected by writing down one thing they learned and one thing they wanted to learn more about. Two notable examples:

“I learned that leaving artifacts where they are is really important.”
“I want to learn the petroglyph stories.”

May 2025

Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) Sean Scruggs, of the Fort Independence Tribe of Paiute Indians, provided attendees with an insightful overview of the role of THPOs. He emphasized the importance of Tribal Cultural Sovereignty and the need for the public to better understand the deep connection between tribes, the land, and the natural world. This understanding is essential to effectively monitor, respect, and protect sacred sites from looting and unnecessary destruction.

Please note that this was an open Microsoft Teams Meeting with public discussion, and as such, the presentation was not recorded. We hope you were able to join us!

April 2025

Volunteers joined NVFCP and a representative from Howard Hughes Corporation to clean up light trash and test the online reporting system for stewarding the important cultural area known as Little Red Rock. Since 2022, NVFCP has been helping to manage this area and we are happy to expand our coverage to all of the rocky outcrops, not just those with petroglyphs and pictographs. The entire area is an unofficial archaeological district and deserves to be stewarded and kept free from human damages. 

We were glad we explored new areas because we found over 20 pallets at a few different spots all ready to be burned over the Easter weekend. Howard Hughes Corporation made sure to remove them all as quickly as possible. 

NVFCP and our lands are so lucky to have volunteers who care enough to sacrifice their Sunday morning to picking up garbage and hunt for human damages. 

April 2025

Jake Hickerson, Archaeologist Bureau of Land Management - Basin and Range National Monument

The Lincoln County Archaeological Initiative (LCAI) was established in 2006 to fund projects for the inventory, evaluation, protection, and management of unique cultural resources in Lincoln County, Nevada. Between 2006 and 2025, LCAI has funded over $12 Million for 84 individual projects. This talk covers the development of the grant funding initiative and explores some of the results of recent projects.

NVFCP has created a preliminary online resources guide for Lincoln County Archaeology. This is covered in the presentation and can be accessed here.

Watch a video of this presentation on our YouTube Channel here!

April 2025

NVFCP had an outreach booth at this year's Sunrise Library "Get Lost In Nevada" event. There were a number of outreach booths with information geared toward sharing the love of Nevada's outdoors. There were even burros which attracted many folks. 

Our replica petroglyph and pictograph panel was well received. Booth attendees understood why we don't mark on rocks and why we don't touch these amazing cultural resources. 

Many folks don't have the means to get out to see cultural sites so we had a handout with links to virtual site visits. 

We have received a LCAI grant for 2025-2027 to:

• Provide educational outreach at four events a year
• Host two guest lectures or workshops a year
• Create a brochure that consolidates all the amazing resources like virtual site visits for the public
• Review archaeological sites along the Silver State Trail for interpretation and signage

We are working closely with the Bureau of Land Management and partnering with the Nevada Site Stewardship Program, Nevada State Parks, and the Lincoln County Authority of Tourism. We look forward to networking and collaboration with more local entities as time goes on.

Lincoln County Photos

March 2025

Nine lovely volunteers joined NVFCP in cleaning up light trash from an important cultural site near Las Vegas. We used magnets to remove tons of nails from years of burning pallets, picked up the larger pieces of broken glass, retrieved buckets of broken fine china, and scoured the bushes for blown in debris. Three of the volunteers also worked on some older graffiti areas. 

These amazing folks have a passion for preserving our heritage sites and enjoyed seeing the natural beauty of the area return as the focus. Bit by bit, this area is changing from a trashed party area to a cared for cultural area. 

February 2025

Presented by Ian Ford-Terry, Archaeologist/Horticulturist at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve

Nuwu Pahsats (“The People’s Garden”) is the latest and largest of the Springs Preserve’s Botanical Garden spaces. It is dedicated to preserving the language and lifeways of the Southern Nevada Paiutes, particularly those of the Moapa, Las Vegas, and Pahrump Paiute tribes, with a special focus on the botanical aspects of their traditional ecological knowledge. The Springs Preserve consulted with members of these groups, collectively known as the Nuwuvi Language Group, on the interpretation of this garden. From the very first meetings, it became clear that this process represented an opportunity to help preserve and revitalize the local dialect of the Southern Paiute language by focusing on everyday words and terms that visitors to the Springs Preserve could relate to: names of plants, words describing the preparation and storage of foods, and words and phrases related to the production of housing, baskets, and other material goods. This focus on language as the basic building blocks of everyday life and culture, and by extension, traditional ecological knowledge, allows the Springs Preserve to concentrate on conserving the native plants that make up the basic physical materials of Nuwu culture. Nuwu Pahsats has endeavored to preserve over 70 words and local Nuwu phrases by representing them phonetically within the interpretive panels and embedding QR codes linking to professional audio recordings of these words as vocalized by the most fluent speaker of the local dialect in the region. It is also home to numerous species of culturally significant native plants and cultivars of Southwestern heirloom crops, with an eye toward building seed banks and eventually nursery stock of these plants to be made available first to our local indigenous communities and partners, and then to the general public.

Watch the video on our YouTube Channel here. 

January 2025

Presentation by Ruzena "Zena" Zatko, Bureau of Land Management -Pahrump Field Office Archaeologist 

The archeological area located at Brownstone Canyon, of Red Rock Canyon’s National Conservation Area in Las Vegas, Nevada, is severely understudied with the last research dating to 1990. This archaeological area is notable for the overlapping presence of the Great Basin Hunter-Gatherers, Virgin Branch Puebloans, Patayan, and Southern Paiute. The earliest evidence shows this place was utilized from the late Archaic period to contact. To investigate paths of entry to this area, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were employed to map relevant data, and a StoryMap was created to share these findings. This StoryMap will serve as a focal point for discussing how its use in research, land management, and public outreach can serve as a powerful tool to disseminate information to a variety of audiences. 

See the StoryMap here.

Watch the video on our YouTube Channel here. 

November 2024

The annual NVFCP outreach booth at Hump-N-Bump in Logandale, NV was another success. This off-road event draws a great crowd of folks who enjoy riding in the Nevada backcountry. They are the ones that are able to access remote archaeological sites. We asked them to help us all by reporting any damage they find and to visit sites responsibly.  Our friends at Vegas Valley 4 Wheelers host this event and always provide us a spot free of charge!