This event is part of Honouliuli National Historic Site's 10th Anniversary Celebration.

This talk will present the long-term process of landscape change at Honouliuli National Historic Site leading to the creation of a preservation landscape. Honouliuli National Historic Site is a place that holds significant meaning for people globally. Landscapes hold physical aspects of the past and can accumulate numerous generations of human inhabitants that can modify and change landscapes over time. These physical objects bring connection to the present by creating those timeless experiences - touching an object that others once touched, to stand in the places where they once stood, to learn the lessons of the land that they once learned. The loss of physical resources can break connections, create gaps in knowledge, and diminishes a people by removing their connections to the landscape. How parks manage historic landscapes also is a process of creation and renewal. What are the actions that we take to preserve resources into the future and how does this create a preservation landscape that is different from what has come before? Resource management at Honouliuli has much to teach us through the hard work of preservation. Physical objects take hard work and intentional restoration to ensure that the integrity of significance continues. The talk will contextualize Honouliuli within its historic landscape and explain the ways that the park is actively working to create a landscape focused on preserving these essential elements of history for future generations to engage and connect to the stories at Honouliuli.

Biography:

Sturdevant brings over 25 years of NPS experience. He began his career working as an archeological technician at Dinosaur National Monument before serving as an archeologist and cultural resource advisor at the Midwest Archeological Center in Nebraska for 22 years. His prior experience includes an acting superintendent assignment at Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site in 2017. Sturdevant received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology from Colorado State University in 1999 and a Master of Arts degree in Anthropology from the University of Nebraska in 2001.