Eldon Yellowhorn

Biography

Dr. Yellowhorn is Piikani and has family and cultural ties to the Peigan Indian Reserve. His Piikani name, Otahkotskina, which translates as Yellow Horn, has been in the family for generations. His early career in archaeology began in southern Alberta where he studied the ancient cultures of the plains. He is especially interested in the mythology and folklore of his Piikani ancestors in both ancient and recent times.

He was appointed to faculty at Simon Fraser University in 2002 and established the Department of First Nations Studies in 2012. He served as Chair from 2012–17 and he teaches courses dedicated to chronicling the experience of Aboriginal people across Canada. He is the past president of the Canadian Archaeological Association (2010–2012) and the first Aboriginal person to hold this title. He continues his involvement in the CAA and is now the co-chair of the Ethics Committee. He is also working on the Ethics Task Force with the Society for American Archaeology as it reviews its statement of ethics for its membership.

Throughout his career, Dr. Yellowhorn has been an advocate of the right of Aboriginal people to be active participants in examining the past through their internal dialogue on the nature of antiquity. He developed his internalist approach to bring a self-reflexive quality to field research that enhances this perspective by appropriating the methods of archaeology to pursue internally defined objectives.

Dr. Yellowhorn is a writer whose compositions have appeared in scholarly and popular journals. His published works included encyclopedic treatments of Indigenous people and educational books for young readers.