Tom Windes grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, a Washington suburb, and was educated at the University of North Carolina (B.A., 1965) and the University of New Mexico (M.A., 1967). His professional experience is primarily with the U.S. Forest Service (1970–1971), the U.S. Park Service’s Chaco Project (1972–present), other park projects (1995–2005), and with some contract work across the Southwest, including UNM’s Office of Contract Archaeology (1974–1975) and for his tiny Dusty Resources. For the past 20 years, he has returned to the region of his first professional job in SE Utah (USFS) working at Natural Bridges National Monument doing structural wood documentation and tree-ring sampling (2000-2010), and then on to BLM lands of the now greater Bears Ears monument region (2010-present), along with working in historic sites across the SW.
His professional interests include ceramic analyses, ground stone, Chacoan architecture, architectural wood, dating techniques (i.e., tree-ring, AMS, and archaeomagnetic dating), the Chacoan-shrine communications system, ant studies, turquoise craft activities, early puebloan settlements in the Chaco-region, and historic (Navajo and Hispanic), prehistoric puebloan settlement patterns, and historic structures and related villages. Presently, he is an anthropology Adjunct Professor at UNM with an office in the Hibben Building.
He has published or co-published over 120 articles and monographs in the Park Service’s Chaco Reports, and in numerous journals including American Antiquity, Kiva, Scientific American, Journal of Archaeological Science, Journal of Field Archaeology, Cambridge University Press, University of Utah Press, the University of Arizona Press, the NM Historical Review, and the University of New Mexico Press, among others.