(1932 − 2022 Jan. 22): Age 90
Carol Condie passed peacefully in her sleep on January 22, 2022. She was born in Provo, Utah, to LeRoy and Thelma Condie and grew up in Salt Lake City and in southern Utah. She attended the University of Utah where she met Kent Stout. They were married in 1954 until his passing in 2012. Together they had three children, Carla, Erik, and Paula.
Carol earned her BA at the University of Utah when she discovered her passion for anthropology and archeology and made life-long friends through the Glen Canyon Project, documenting and analyzing archeological sites prior to their inundation by Lake Powell. She was the editor for the project’s reports under the exacting standards of Dr. Jesse Jennings and was the director of the project’s laboratory. She then completed her Master’s in Education at Cornell University, and her PhD in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico, where she explored the linguistic intricacies of the Zuni language as well as Navajo and Apache. She was the Education Coordinator and the Director of the Division of Interpretation for the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at UNM in the 1970s and served on its Board of Directors in the 1980s.
In 1978, Carol launched her own consulting archeology company, Quivira Research Center. She quickly established herself as a leader in Southwestern archeology, working throughout New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah to conduct archeological surveys of lands that were slated to be impacted by construction. Her clients included utilities, oil and gas companies, construction firms, state and federal agencies, and Native American tribes, and all appreciated both her high degree of professionalism and efficiency in completing the work on time and under budget. She issued more than 500 reports, impacting NM archeology for generations to come. She was a historic figure in the development of CRM and the Section 106 process in New Mexico.
Carol was fiercely committed to preservation of archeological sites and resources. She was instrumental in filing the NM-based lawsuit that compelled the US Forest Service to use professional archeologists throughout the United States to ensure no damage was done to sites through the many ground-disturbing activities conducted on forest lands (timbering, road construction, etc.). She compiled a thorough catalogue of all the cemeteries in Albuquerque to ensure their protection. Along with many others, she worked to establish the world-class Petroglyph National Monument. And through her tireless leadership, Albuquerque promulgated an archeological preservation ordinance that she helped draft in 2007, which has served as a model throughout the country (although it required more than 20 years of hard concerted effort and assistance from then-City Councilor Martin Heinrich to get it passed and signed into law).
She also served on numerous archeological boards and professional societies and garnered multiple awards through the years. She was a member of the American Anthropological Society, the Society for American Archaeology (where she chaired the Native American Relations Committee and co-chaired the Taskforce on the Treatment of Human Skeletal Remains), the Historical Society of New Mexico, the Archaeological Society of New Mexico (serving on the Board of Trustees), the New Mexico Archaeological Council (serving as President), and the Albuquerque Archaeological Society. She received the State of New Mexico Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation in 1986, the NMAC Award for Historic Preservation in 1988, the City of Albuquerque Open Space Program Award in 1989, the ASNM Archaeological Achievement Award in 1998, and the NMAC Award of Honor for Service to Archeology in 2008. She was also a seminar leader for Crow Canyon Tours throughout the southwest for more than a decade. She will be dearly missed.
We encourage those who would like to honor Carol to make a donation to The Archaeological Conservancy at www. archaeologicalconservancy.org or 1717 Girard Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87016.