This book is a relatively short and accessible publication that works to unpack many of the unspoken colonial assumptions that are built into archaeological process and interpretation. Montgomery seeks to re-centre archaeological interpretation to better align with Indigenous histories and understanding of place, landscapes, and relationship to the environment. The author uses a deep understanding of contemporary Indigenous ways of knowing and approaches to the past, in combination with written records, maps and other conventional archaeological datasets, to inform their interpretation of archaeological findings. Further, in overtly acknowledging that they are not Indigenous themself, the author clearly demonstrates that these kinds of re-framings can be effectively completed by anyone who takes the time to learn and understand new ways of thinking.

The author uses an archaeological dataset of primarily lithic sites that were identified during surveys they conducted at the Toas Plateau in northern New Mexico. Part of this survey was an attempt to connect the deep-time Indigenous land use of the area to the more recent and modern colonial land use. In conducting an extensive re-survey of this area, and connecting the new findings to older surveys, the author creates an almost ideal archaeological playground for this comparison and continuity. For each area surveyed, Montgomery summarises the previous findings and interpretations, and then follows with a new interpretation based on the revised data and their own interpretive framework.

There are a couple of important aspects of this book that deserve to be highlighted. The first is that the author attempts a critical deconstruction of archaeological process and highlights the unintended consequences of some aspects of wrote archaeological practice. While this is not new in and of itself, what is significant is that they offer some clear and practical suggestions to mitigate these impacts. When discussing chronological periods, for example, Montgomery discusses in detail why they chose to de-emphasise archaeological periods of time (e.g. Archaic period) by placing the associated calendar years first (e.g. 1200–1400 BCE). This is a simple change in emphasis, but it highlights the colonial structures that archaeological categories overlay onto the data, while still maintaining the association with previous archaeological knowledge. The author acknowledges that this is not a perfect solution, but it is a step towards finding new ways of addressing these issues. The fact that this is a practical and simple change deserves emphasis because it is easy for practitioners to adopt in other contexts, and this is something that is often difficult to articulate in more high-level post-colonial critiques.

The second aspect to emphasise is that the book focuses primarily on more enigmatic lithic scatters. These types of sites are common in many North American contexts but are often underdiscussed, as they offer few obvious interpretive paths; they can rarely be dated, they are not often associated with other historical datasets, and it is often difficult to determine if they represent single-use episodes or multiple reuses of a space over longer periods of time. Given these difficulties, lithic scatters are often recorded and then ignored. Montgomery re-visits the value of these sites by working to de-emphasise the conventional archaeological goals of focusing on time, chronology, and culture change as starting points. Instead, they emphasise the location of the sites in the landscape, and their relationships to the environment and other sites as the starting point to permit new discussions of their use and interpretive value. This interpretation is only possible due to the large-scale nature of the survey that was conducted, but it is another example of how archaeological interpretation can be re-centred to allow for new ways of thinking.

My only critique is that it would have been interesting to include the perspective of the local Indigenous communities as to their feeling about Montgomery's re-framing. It is obvious that the author has relationships with many of the communities and that these relationships helped inform their re-centring. This is not meant as a statement that the descendant Indigenous communities should have the ultimate say on how this was applied, or that archaeological research and interpretation requires descendant peoples to validate it; instead, this is more of an expression of interest in getting a sense of Indigenous impressions of this process and how effective it is in mitigating any negative impacts from their perspectives.

Overall, this book is an accessible and enjoyable read that does an exceptional job of highlighting and deconstructing assumptions within the archaeological process and offering actionable suggestions of how the impacts of these assumptions can be partially mitigated. While the specifics might not be applicable in all contexts, the frameworks and search for new ways of thinking offer much value beyond the limits of this study.