Ian Thompson

Ian (Sandy) Thompson was the executive director of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center from 1987 to 1990 and the director of research from 1995 to 1997. He was also an author who wrote about life in southwestern Colorado. Sandy loved to visit ancient sites and often thought about their setting in the landscape. These are his words from his book Houses on Country Roads:

At the ruin there is, as is the case at many of these sites, a sense of tranquillity which I cannot explain. This cluster of mounds seems to gather the surrounding landscape around itself in such a way as to become the center of that circle of earth and stone, forest and field.
     While there I find myself alternating between looking at the landscape beyond the ruin and then tracing the outlines of the fallen stone walls surrounding me. I can never see the land as the builders of that pueblo saw it, and I can never hear the voices of the builders. Still, there in that place, enough of their legacy remains to speak with a voice of its own.

From Houses on Country Roads, by Ian Thompson.
Copyright 1995 by the Durango Herald. Reprinted with permission.