President Franklin Roosevelt proffered a New Deal to pull the United States out of the Great Depression of the 1930s by establishing agencies to create relief work for the unemployed millions. Not coincidentally, archaeologists founded the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) during that era. Two reworked 1980s dissertations, published in 1996, documented how unprecedented levels of funding from New Deal make-work programs stimulated professionalization of archaeology and formation of a nascent national research community (Paul Fagette, Digging for Dollars: American Archaeology and the New Deal; and Edwin A. Lyon, A New Deal for Southeastern Archaeology). After assuming the chair of the SAA History of Archaeology Interest Group, Bernard Means resurrected interest in New Deal archaeology, organized a symposium for the 2010 SAA annual meeting, and edited a follow-up series of chapters (Shovel Ready: Archaeology and Roosevelt’s New Deal for America, 2013). That book, Fagette’s and Lyon’s books, and most subsequent research focused on the eastern half of the country. Consequently, Mark Howe organized a symposium for the 2015 SAA annual meeting to focus on the neglected western states. Then, he and Kelly Pool edited a selection of those presentations and solicited others, which comprise New Deal Archaeology in the West, first published in hardcover in 2023 and now in paperback. The collection is a bit of a hodgepodge but succeeds admirably in providing the intended overview of New Deal archaeology and other heritage preservation activities across the West.

An introduction by Kelly and Howe provides context and summarizes the 10 chapters that follow. In the next chapter Darby Stapp and Robert Mierendorf focus on archaeological and nonarchaeological historic preservation work in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska. The paucity of local archaeologists in the Northwest limited salvage excavations despite massive dam construction projects. Nancy Mahoney then recounts a fascinating tale of the transition from amateurs to professionals leading archaeological research in Montana. Danny Walker’s chapter describes statewide survey and limited excavation in Wyoming. Steven James describes projects constrained in Utah by the limited number of professionals and the self-reliant tenets of the Mormon church that resisted government relief work.

More advanced professional development in the Southwest and support of a strong Democratic governor resulted in enough projects in Arizona to warrant two chapters. Todd Bostwick and Steven James discuss projects in the southern part of the state, and Peter Pilles and Jeanne Stevens cover the northern part. Kelly Pool focuses on National Park Service stabilization and reconstruction at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado and Aztec National Monument in New Mexico. John Schelberg, Thomas Windes, and Carla Van West discuss projects in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon, focusing on work of the Civilian Conservation Corps–Indian Division.

Timothy Perttula summarizes his analysis of unreported New Deal artifact collections from ancestral Caddo sites in east Texas. Mark Howe describes infrastructure projects built along the Mexico border from Texas to California, some of which are now significant historic properties. Bernard Means concludes with his familiar peal for more study of the rich records and collections of New Deal projects.

As historical narratives, the chapters convey a flavor of the sociopolitical context and the personalities involved in New Deal archaeology. Almost gossipy at times, the chapters make tantalizing reading about the era when academic professionals came to dominate the practice of archaeology in the United States and created a research paradigm focused on defining culture areas and puzzling out their chronologies before the invention of radiocarbon dating.

The chapters acknowledge that archaeologists were not really in charge of New Deal archaeology, which focused on excavations to employ armies of laborers—analysis and reporting often were secondary. Although Hester Davis’s 1997 review of Fagette’s and Lyon’s books concluded that the New Deal was a good deal for archaeology (Antiquity 71(271):230–233), other assessments were less sanguine, perhaps biased by the presentism of a generation applying their standards to earlier generations. But the funding certainly was a big deal. When the chapters mention project budgets, they include conversions to 2020 dollars, indicating that our profession owes a debt of gratitude to Harry Hopkins (Roosevelt’s “deputy president” in charge of the New Deal agencies), who decided archaeology was worthy of unimagined levels of . funding, which seemingly fell from the sky and then evaporated when World War II began. New Deal archaeology stands as an example of how our discipline has always waxed and waned with federal funding. Waning funds could again buffet our profession if the current administration succeeds in rewriting regulations that created our current era of cultural resource management.