The idea of an American West that is timeless and unchanging stands in sharp contrast to the social reality.
Over the past two centuries, drastic changes have taken place in the societies that occupy the west, and changes--especially economic ones--continue to this day.
This is the subject matter for the book Historical Archaeology Through a Western Lens, by Margie Purser of Sonoma State University and Mark Warner of the University of Idaho.
They are the guests in this month's edition of "Underground History," co-hosted by Mark Tveskov and Chelsea Rose of the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology. We wade into this flock of archaeologists for a sense of their work and how it is performed in the West.