Ruth Gotthardt
	
Dr. Ruth Gotthardt has played an important role in exploring, documenting, and protecting Yukon archaeological sites and artifacts. She was the Yukon Archaeologist for many years and published significant studies that put the Yukon in the forefront of northern research. Ruth Gotthardt received a Yukon Historical and Museums Association History Maker Award in 2016. ((Yukon Historical and Museums Association, 2024 website: Previous Recipients - Yukon Historical and Museums Association (heritageyukon.ca)))\\
	
Over her career as Yukon Archaeologist, Ruth collected a large sample of stone tools and used them to re-write the cultural sequence of the region.((“Ruth Gotthardt and Greg Hare.” Canadian Archaeological Association 2024 website: Ruth Gotthardt and Greg Hare | Canadian Archaeological Association / Association canadienne d'archéologie (canadianarchaeology.com)) She was part of Jacques Cinq-Mars’s controversial excavation of the Bluefish Cave in the Vuntut Gwitch’in First Nation traditional territory. The team found bones of extinct horses and woolly mammoths with marks from human butchering. Radiocarbon dating placed the oldest finds at around 24,000 years before present. The discovery challenged mainstream scientific thinking and it only recently that new techniques and collaborative excavations have supported Jacques Cinq-Mars’s early date.((Heather Pringle, “From vilified to Vindicated: the Story of Jacques Cing-Mars.” //Hakai Magazine,// 7 March 2017. 2024 website:  From Vilified to Vindicated: the Story of Jacques Cinq-Mars | Hakai Magazine))\\

In 2019, Ruth and Greg Hare were awarded the Canadian Archaeological Association’s Roscoe Wilmeth Award for Service. One of their nominators called them the dynamic duo who, for thirty years, administered a respected regulatory system for archaeological research and site management in the Yukon.  They trained archaeology students and professionals, hosted many successful conferences, and conducted a variety of community-based archaeological projects on transboundary lands.((“Ruth Gotthardt and Greg Hare.” Canadian Archaeological Association 2024 website: Ruth Gotthardt and Greg Hare | Canadian Archaeological Association / Association canadienne d'archéologie (canadianarchaeology.com))

Many thanks to Ruth for her help in making this website a reality!