About Cornerstone

Josh Edwards’ professional development has roots in archaeology as well as geology and has taken him throughout the American Southwest. During his graduate career he obtained specialized interdisciplinary academic training in soil geomorphology, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and faunal analysis, among others, and his thesis focusses on the effects of the eruption of Sunset Crater on prehistoric agriculture in the Flagstaff area. His twenty-six years of experience with archaeology of the Southwest ranges among archaeological survey, testing, and data recovery efforts at prehistoric and historic sites throughout Arizona and western New Mexico, and includes projects in California, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Texas. This experience is augmented by international experience in Mexico, Germany, Northern Ireland, and Peru. Josh is an experienced geoarchaeologist, analyst, and project manager with technical experience in soil-geomorphic and geologic research, and faunal, flaked stone, and ground stone analysis and reporting. More recently, he has been involved in multiple historic preservation and forest restoration projects in northern Arizona.

Caitlin received a B.A. in Anthropology from Western Kentucky University and a M.A. from University of Mississippi. During her graduate career she focused on methodological approaches to determining minimum number of individuals in complex bioarchaeological contexts. Throughout her fifteen-year career, she has conducted archaeological survey, testing, and data recovery efforts primarily in the Southwest including Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Utah. Archaeological experience outside of the Southwest include a variety of locales including portions of the Southeast, Marshall Islands, Belize, Guatemala, and Scotland. Areas of technical experience include bioarchaeology, faunal analysis, mortuary practices of the southwest, groundstone analysis, project management, and reporting.

Madeleine Bryant is the Administrative Director and HR specialist at Cornerstone Environmental. Madeleine received a BA in Liberal Arts from Brenau University and an M.S. in GIS from NAU. For her master’s practicum, she studied social trail growth in the Mount Elden/Dry Lake Hills area of Flagstaff collecting data and comparing it to a similar project conducted 10 years prior. In her professional career, Madeleine has worked primarily in administrative and customer service roles. Madeleine’s hobbies include tie dying, fiber arts, social dancing, and backpacking. In 2022, she and her father completed their 16+ year long project of section hiking the length of Grand Canyon.

Mike Pitts was hired as a Senior Project Manager for Cornerstone Environmental. Mike received a B.A. in Anthropology from Central Washington University and a M.A. in Experimental Archaeology from the University of Exeter. Mike’s graduate research and thesis focused on the identification of external stimuli affecting bone taphonomy in archaeological contexts. Mike’s 14-year professional career has included all aspects of archaeological fieldwork including archaeological survey, testing, excavation, data recovery and mitigation, site damage assessments, and archaeological monitoring efforts throughout the Pacific Northwest and Southwest. Mike has conducted cultural resource management projects in Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Through the EXARC program, he also participated in teaching and sharing ancestral skills, including traditional hide tanning, flintknapping, and textile and ceramic production at open-air archaeological museums in England, Wales, Sweden, and Denmark. Areas of expertise and interest include lithic and faunal analysis, groundstone analysis, and reporting.

Jack has worked across the U.S. Southwest and Great Basin since 2014 in the context of archaeological survey, excavation, and historic preservation, with specific focus on survey in northern and central Arizona. His experience has focused on ancestral Indigenous groups including the Cohonina and Sinagua, as well as the archaeology of European-American westward expansion, including activities related to aviation, logging railroads, and homesteading. As a project manager he has been responsible for permitting, compliance, communication, field methods, and final reporting including clearance recommendations. He has also taught archaeology to students, staff, and clients, in both academia and the private sector. He received an M.A. in Anthropology from Northern Arizona University, where his research examined prehistoric landscape relationships in northern Arizona using GIS boundary effects analysis. He received a B.A. in Archaeology from Dickinson College where he focused on classical archaeology and languages. His training included excavation and ground-penetrating radar at the citadel and lower town of Bronze Age Mycenae.

Samuel received a B.A in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.A from Northern Arizona University. During his academic career he participated in field schools in Southern California and Belize where he assisted in pedestrian survey, site recordings and excavations. A Los Angeles native, Samuel moved to Flagstaff in 2017 to begin his Master’s program at NAU and decided to stick around, beginning his professional archaeology career in 2019 shortly after graduating.  His academic and professional interests include LiDAR assisted survey, and historic artifact analysis. Personal hobbies include painting and cooking

Edlin earned a B.S. in Anthropology with a focus in Archaeology from the University of California, Riverside. Her academic career included field schools in Southern California and Belize where she assisted in conducting pedestrian surveys, site recordings, and excavations. Originally from Southern California, Edlin moved to Flagstaff in 2018 where she began her professional archaeology career. Since then, Edlin has been an Archaeological Field Technician with several companies throughout Arizona, including Cornerstone. She was recently hired on to the company as a permanent Crew Chief and occasional Field Director. Her research interests include Pre Colombian Indigenous communities of West Mexico and trade routes between Mesoamerica and the American Southwest.

With roots in Colorado, Tara is new to Arizona residency and the Cornerstone team. She spent the early years of her professional archaeological career highly mobile; conducting surveys and data recovery in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Minnesota, and Kansas. She received both her B.A. and M.A. from the University of Colorado Denver. Her M.A. degree had a dual focus in archaeology and biological anthropology. Her graduate research centered on cranio-facial morphology of Middle Pleistocene hominins using virtual technologies, including geometric morphometrics. She has conducted academic fieldwork at the human origin sites of Laetoli and Olduvai Gorge in Northern Tanzania. Tara is a hobby artist, who has always enjoyed mixing her love of scientific drawing and with he work in archaeology and osteology.

Born and raised in Glendora, CA, Sean moved to Flagstaff in fall of 2021 after earning a BA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He first fell in love with the southwest after volunteering with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Archaeology Southwest's field school in the Summer of 2019. After moving to Flagstaff, Sean completed a MA in archaeology from NAU in the spring of 2023. He has conducted undergraduate research on Mealing Bins in the Mogollon during the Pithouse to Pueblo transition, in addition to a graduate thesis on T-shaped Doors in the state of AZ (The Tau of Doors: The Footprints of the Past). Sean's individual archaeological interests are T-shaped Doors, Interconnectivity and Trade in the Southwest/Mexican Northwest, Indigenous Archaeology, Public Archaeology, and Preservation. Sean's personal hobbies include Baseball, Reading, Birding, watching any kind of Sportsball, and being outside (when not already in the field).

Born in Washington state, Carson was used to cloudy and rainy weather before he moved down to Prescott, AZ for college. He received his Bachelor of Science in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, along with a GIS certificate. While in college, Carson started a club that worked with local government agencies such as the Prescott National Forest and Arizona Game and Fish Department to provide forestry metrics such as tree height, count and more. Upon graduating, he moved up to Flagstaff where he found a great combination of sunny days, beautiful green trees, and fall colors. Carson has a special passion for collecting forestry metrics via LiDAR and other forms of remote sensing, specifically collection via (UAS). Carson’s hobbies include snowboarding, hiking, weightlifting and connecting with community and friends.

Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Jordan moved to Flagstaff in 2020, where she fell in love with the landscape and the history of the Southwest and began her career in archaeology. She received her B.A in Anthropology from the University of Kentucky, where she worked with the William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology to curate a collection of Paleolithic stone tools, and her M.A. in Anthropology from Northern Arizona University where she worked with the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project to analyze caches of lithic eccentrics excavated at Ballcourt 2 in Xunantunich, Cayo District, Belize. Jordan’s interests in archaeology include lithic production, trade routes across the Southwest, land management, public archaeology, preservation, and museum science. In her free time, Jordan enjoys cooking, singing, painting, and hiking.