Indigenous Foods - Stay Curious, Utah!
The Four Corners Potato is a small but mighty tuber found in the Four Corners Region of Utah. Join Anthropologist Dr. Lisbeth Louderback and Utah Diné Bikéyah Traditional Food Program Director Cynthia Wilson to learn about NHMU's research, the importance of the the Four Corners Potato to Indigenous communities, and the Indigenous food sovereignty movement.
Recorded Q&A with Anthropologist Dr. Lisbeth Louderback and Utah Diné Bikéyah Traditional Foods Program Director Cynthia Wilson - December 8, 2021
Dr. Lisbeth Louderback joined NHMU in 2014, specializing in Utah prehistory and paleoecology. Plant remains found in archeological sites, both large (seeds, fruits, and leaves) and small (starch granules and pollen grains), provide clues to local resources and past climates that help define human dietary patterns through time. This allows Dr. Louderback to explore how people coped with environmental change during the late Pleistocene and Holocene in western North America, with a particular focus on the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau.
Cynthia Wilson is a tribal member of the Navajo Nation, born and raised in Monument Valley, Utah. She is of the Folded Arms People clan and born for the Towering House clan. Cynthia holds a Masters of Science degree in Nutrition from the University of Utah. She is a Native and Indigenous Rights fellow with Harvard Divinity School. She serves as the Traditional Foods Program Director for Utah Diné Bikéyah, a native-led nonprofit organization with a mission to preserve and protect the cultural and natural resources of ancestral lands. She is also a founding member of the Women of Bears Ears who seeks to restore Indigenous women’s matrilineal roles and the rematriation of the Earth. Her work encompasses traditional knowledge that addresses the environmental, cultural, nutritional and spiritual health of the land and the people. Cynthia hopes to strengthen healthy food practices and ties to reclaim local traditional foodways among Indigenous communities.