Mark Varien, Ph.D.
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Principal Investigator

Mark D. Varien (Ph.D., Arizona State University, 1997) is a principal investigator of the Village Ecodynamics Project.

He began conducting research in the central Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado in 1979. Since 1987, he has worked at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center to further the Center’s mission of conducting archaeological research, delivering public education programs about the human past, and partnering with American Indians on the design and delivery of those research and education programs. His research examines how population movement structures settlement patterns, and his recent collaborative work seeks to integrate archaeological and indigenous knowledge.

He currently serves as the executive vice president of the Crow Canyon Research Institute.

Mark's research has been published in scientific journals and in books; he is the author of Sedentism and Mobility in a Social Landscape: Mesa Verde and Beyond (University of Arizona Press, 1999). Along with Tim Kohler and Aaron Wright, he edited Leaving Mesa Verde: Peril and Change in the Thirteenth-Century Southwest (University of Arizona Press, 2010).

Our Mission

Crow Canyon is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.