Executive Director
john.taylor-montoya@dca.nm.gov
(505) 476-4404
John Taylor-Montoya, PhD is the Executive Director for the Office of Archaeological Studies (OAS).
John has been practicing archaeology in the greater Southwest U.S. for more than 20 years. Archaeology has led him to such disparate locales as Bonfire Rockshelter, a multicomponent bison kill, in the canyons of southwest Texas, high-altitude Folsom (Paleoindian) stone structure sites in the Colorado Rockies, Cold War missile testing facilities in the Tularosa Basin, to Puebloan sites near St. Johns, Arizona and points in between. His service for state archaeological agencies began in 2001 in the Oklahoma State Archaeologists office and he has since worked for the Oklahoma Highway Department, founded his own consultant service, and served as a Project Manager and Director for private cultural resource firms.
John received the Bachelor of Science degree in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 2000, the Master of Arts in Anthropology from the University of Oklahoma in 2003, and the Ph.D. in Anthropology from Southern Methodist University in 2011. His graduate theses were studies of lithic technology and human adaptations on the Southern Great Plains (Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico) during the Paleoindian period.
John is a lithic analyst with expertise in the organization of lithic technology among small scale societies and also has demonstrated expertise in quantitative analysis, spatial analysis, and databases. He lives in Albuquerque with his wife, two children, a poodle, four fish, and a crested gecko.