Radiating outwards from both the Et Al and Owens sites are enigmatic linear swales, meticulously crafted by human hands, extending in remarkably straight lines for over a mile. The precise function of these ancient "roads" remains a subject of ongoing archaeological inquiry, though prevailing theories posit their role as more than mere thoroughfares. Scholars often interpret them as ceremonial or symbolic constructions, designed not only to link various communities but also to forge profound connections to sacred mountains, prominent landforms, and celestial alignments. The cultural resonance of these pathways transcends generations; archaeologists have uncovered Hopi pottery dating from the 15th century – centuries after the original inhabitants departed Cedar Mesa – along the Et Al "roads." This discovery powerfully indicates that the descendants of the original Ancestral Puebloans returned to these ancestral homelands, maintaining a deep, enduring connection to their heritage and the memory of those who came before them. The intricate network of these "roads" unequivocally demonstrates that these ancient structures cannot be understood in isolation; they represent an inextricable part of a vast, interconnected cultural and natural landscape, a holistic system of belief and daily life.

This profound historical and cultural tapestry became the focal point of a significant modern conservation battle, illuminating the deep-seated tensions between heritage preservation, Indigenous rights, and resource extraction in the American West. In 2016, responding to the urgent pleas of five sovereign tribal nations – the Hopi, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, and Zuni Pueblo – President Barack Obama exercised his authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to establish the landscape-scale Bears Ears National Monument. This designation sought to protect not only the thousands of archaeological sites like Et Al and Owens but also the surrounding lands, recognizing the interconnectedness of the cultural landscape. However, the monument’s existence quickly became a flashpoint in national land management debates. A year later, in 2017, President Donald Trump significantly reduced the boundaries of both Bears Ears and the nearby Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a move that sparked immediate legal challenges and widespread condemnation from conservationists and tribal communities. While President Joe Biden subsequently restored the original boundaries, the specter of renewed attacks on these protected areas remains a persistent concern, with some political factions advocating for a return to the drastic reductions seen during the previous administration.

The Trump administration’s initial boundary cuts, which removed protections from over 2.9 million acres of public lands, including nearly all of Cedar Mesa and the invaluable Et Al and Owens sites, were far more extensive than any previous monument reduction in U.S. history. At Grand Staircase-Escalante, for instance, approximately 1.69 million acres were excised from national monument status. This dramatic alteration immediately revived the prospect of industrial activities such as large-scale coal mining on previously leased areas of the fossil-rich Kaiparowits Plateau, uranium extraction in the historic Circle Cliffs mining district, and widespread oil and gas drilling throughout the once-protected region. Beyond resource extraction, the administration also eased restrictions on motorized travel, vegetation clearing, and livestock grazing across the significantly diminished remnants of both monuments, signaling a broader shift towards multi-use land management that often prioritizes commercial interests over conservation and cultural preservation.

Adding to the affront, the Trump administration’s actions also terminated the Bears Ears Commission, a groundbreaking collaborative body comprising representatives from the five tribal nations instrumental in the monument’s establishment and the development of its management plan. This unprecedented commission represented a significant step forward in co-managing public lands with Indigenous communities, recognizing their ancestral ties and expertise. The dissolution of the commission, coupled with reports from the Salt Lake Tribune that federal agencies removed the five tribes’ seals from official signs at the remaining portions of Bears Ears, underscored a perceived hostility from the White House towards tribal sovereignty and self-determination in land management. These actions were widely interpreted as a deliberate attempt to undermine the foundational principle of Indigenous co-management and disregard the deep spiritual and historical connections of tribal nations to these lands.

The legal basis for these monument reductions rested on the 1906 Antiquities Act, which grants presidents the power to set aside federal land to protect natural landmarks, archaeological sites, and "other objects of historic or scientific interest." However, a crucial point of contention, widely supported by legal scholars and historical precedent, is that the Act does not explicitly empower a president to unilaterally rescind or significantly reduce an established national monument; that authority, they argue, is reserved for Congress. This fundamental legal question has propelled a cascade of lawsuits filed by tribal nations, environmental organizations, and conservation advocates, with many expecting the issue to ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court for a definitive ruling on the extent of presidential power under the Antiquities Act. The administration’s proclamations also argued that national monument status was redundant, claiming the lands were already adequately protected by existing federal laws and regulations, a stance that drew immediate criticism given the concurrent efforts by the same administration to systematically weaken those very protective statutes.

Indeed, the pursuit of "energy dominance" was a consistent theme of the administration, often manifesting in efforts to diminish environmental and cultural protections. One particularly concerning move involved attempts to incapacitate Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). This vital piece of legislation theoretically safeguards cultural sites from destructive development by requiring federal agencies to consider the effects of their undertakings on historic properties and, crucially, to consult with tribes whose sites may be impacted. Undermining Section 106 would effectively strip Indigenous communities of a critical tool for protecting their ancestral heritage, exposing countless undocumented sites to irreversible damage.

Beyond its overt deregulatory agenda, the White House’s legal justification for the monument cuts revealed a profound misunderstanding of the region’s intricate landscape and deep history. The administration contended that the original boundaries encompassed an excessive amount of land, thereby failing to comply with the Antiquities Act’s stipulation that designations be confined to the "smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected." The state of Utah, in its own legal challenge seeking to invalidate the monuments, echoed this reductionist perspective, asserting that the areas contained only a handful of "objects" truly worthy of protection, which could be safeguarded on a strictly individual basis, distinct from the surrounding landscapes.

The redrawn boundaries implemented by the Trump administration precisely followed this narrow, atomistic approach. They meticulously carved out lines around only the most well-known landmarks and historic sites, effectively dismissing vast expanses of the surrounding terrain as mere "generic topographic and geologic features." In Grand Staircase-Escalante, for example, the administration annihilated virtually all of the monument’s expansive western side, leaving behind only a tiny square and a similarly sized strip near the community of Big Water. This latter fragment was preserved primarily because it was the site where paleontologists discovered the bones of Sarabosaurus dahli, a newly identified taxon of the ancient sea-going dinosaur, the Turonian mosasaurid. Yet, these ancient creatures and their contemporaries did not confine themselves to such minuscule areas; critical fossils abound across hundreds of thousands of acres of the Kaiparowits Plateau. This area, however, also happens to be immensely rich in coal, oil, and gas, a confluence of factors that, critics argue, directly led to its strategic removal from protected status.

Bears Ears, meanwhile, was reduced to two primary units, Shásh Jáa and Indian Creek, along with a handful of tiny, discrete units extending monument status to a few isolated Ancestral Puebloan sites like Doll House, Moon House, and the Citadel. Ironically, the proclamation also protected the Scorup Cabin, once inhabited by the "Mormon Cowboy" A.J. Scorup, and even an oil well drilled in 1926 – an "ancient" oil well now theoretically shielded from further oil and gas development, a paradox not lost on observers.

This piecemeal approach stands in stark contrast to the original intent and historical application of the Antiquities Act. Had President Teddy Roosevelt, the Act’s progenitor, applied similar logic when he first established Grand Canyon National Monument in 1908, he would not have protected the original 800,000 acres. Instead, he would have designated a collection of much smaller "units," each containing a distinct landmark – Havasu Falls, Mather Point, Vishnu Temple, or Bright Angel Point, for example. Roosevelt, however, possessed a far more nuanced understanding of the American West than modern proponents of monument reduction. He recognized that sacred and scientifically significant landscapes are profoundly more than the mere sum of a handful of discrete "objects." One cannot extract the Vishnu Temple from the Grand Canyon; such so-called discrete "objects"—whether geological formations, ancient dwellings, or other cultural sites—are fundamentally inseparable from the encompassing landscape itself. To do so would strip them of their essential context, meaning, and significance. Therefore, to genuinely protect these "objects," as the Antiquities Act empowers the president to do, one must also safeguard the vast, interconnected landscapes that define and connect them.

The Supreme Court has previously affirmed this holistic concept. Following Roosevelt’s initial use of the newly minted Antiquities Act to establish the Grand Canyon National Monument, a claimant with mining interests within the canyon sued, taking his case all the way to the High Court. In Cameron v. United States (1920), the justices unequivocally ruled against the mining interests, asserting that the law empowered the president to "establish reserves embracing ‘objects of historic or scientific interest.’" The Court further elucidated that the entire Grand Canyon, as stated in Roosevelt’s proclamation, constituted "an object of unusual scientific interest." This landmark ruling established a crucial precedent, affirming that vast, complex natural formations could be considered a single "object" worthy of protection under the Act, thereby legitimizing the broad, landscape-level designations that are now under threat.

President Obama brought this holistic vision to fruition on an even grander scale with the establishment of Bears Ears, aiming to protect not just prominent sites like Et Al, but also the ancient "roads," shrines, agricultural fields, and natural landforms that intricately connect them. The "objects of historic and scientific interest" in these cases are not merely discrete landmarks; as the land itself, and particularly the Ancestral Puebloan sites with their profound synthesis of natural form and human community, makes clear, the entire landscape functions as a singular, living repository of history and culture. As Santa Clara Pueblo artist, architect, and scholar Rina Swentzell eloquently articulated in a 1991 paper on Ancestral Puebloan architecture, "Here, the human landscape is meaningless outside the natural context – human constructions are not considered out of their relationship to the hills, valleys and mountains." Swentzell further emphasized that the material village "constitutes one place within the whole. The web of human existence is interlaced with what happens in the larger natural context and therefore flows into the adjacent spaces, hills, and mountains." This Indigenous worldview, which sees humanity and nature as inextricably linked components of a vast, sacred whole, underscores the profound cultural and ecological injustice of fragmenting these irreplaceable national treasures. The ongoing legal and political battles over Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante represent more than just a dispute over acreage; they are a fundamental struggle over the interpretation of heritage, the future of public lands, and the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty in the American landscape.