The mission of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is to empower present and future generations by making the human past accessible and relevant through archaeological research, experiential education, and American Indian knowledge. The Center was established in 1983 as a not-for-profit archaeological research and education institution near Cortez, Colorado. The Center's founder, Stuart Struever, a professor of anthropology at Northwestern University, believed that significant advances in our knowledge and understanding of the human past could best be accomplished by an independent, privately funded center that engages the public in archaeological research.